SIX WEEKS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!
Our daughter “Boo” told me a couple years ago that, for her, our Thanksgiving dinner shopping trip is the official start of the Christmas season! Hopefully your grocery shopping will be as enjoyable for your family as it is for ours. Six years ago, this very week I made a trip over to Seattle to be with my husband, who had a health crisis. He had been life-flighted the night before, and my adult daughters and I did a quick Thanksgiving shopping together, getting some stupendous bargains. It was fun, AND done, and I could leave them to handle Thanksgiving dinner without me.
Last November, we had an exciting family “emergency” with the early birth of our eighth grandchild, which involved having four of our young grandchildren unexpectedly stay with us for an entire week, and then care for them part of the day over the next few weeks while their tiny sister grew big in the NICU. She has thrived, is beautiful and just turned one. Shortly after her very early birth, her Mama fell and broke her ankle which meant even more days with the children staying here. You never know when life will throw interesting challenges into your days. It is a reminder that it is wise to make as many preparations ahead of time as possible.
I promised you last week that we’d share with you how we do our Thanksgiving dinner shopping.
Every year, when our Thanksgiving menu, and shopping list are completed, we take a morning to purchase the groceries. Our menu doesn’t change much from year to year, which means less work on our part.
One local grocer traditionally has turkey priced as low as 59 cents a pound, when buying another fifty dollars worth of groceries. It likely will be more expensive this year, but those type of bargains are worth looking into. This grocer also has sale prices on other items like fresh cranberries, sweet potatoes, olives, pickles, cream cheese, sugar, flour, butter, and much more. We plan virtually all of our shopping for this one store, and get great bargains as we spend our $50, purchase our turkey and are done shopping for Thanksgiving! It cuts down on the stress, and it works out magnificently for us.
If you have little ones you might find it more relaxing to shop without them. See if another mom will watch your kids for a couple hours while you complete this, in exchange for you offering a couple of hours to watch hers, or order online for pickup and save even more time.
You may not choose to do it our way, but if you are buying a frozen turkey, you’ll need to get it by early next week in order to allow sufficient time for thawing. Here are my hints on buying and roasting the perfect turkey.
FUNNY STORY!
With Thanksgiving coming up fast, cleaning out my refrigerator sat heavy on my mind a couple of years ago. So much so that I actually had a crazy dream in which I arranged for the garbage man to come and tip the contents out of the refrigerator and into the garbage truck. In that dream, our refrigerator was so nice and clean, that I awoke VERY DISAPPOINTED to realize that I still had to complete that task!
We actually got the refrigerator cleaned in less than an hour, a couple of days later, to make room for the groceries we planned to buy. Tossing the expired or rarely used items, including the little condiment packages, the little tubs of dried up leftovers and cleaning the slimy lettuce and dried up limes from the bottom of the vegetable drawer. When we had all the shelves cleaned off, we covered them with “Glad Wrap Press and Seal,” which is easy to wipe off or remove and replace.
* IF your refrigerator has little experiments growing in it, or needs a garbage truck 😉 in order to be cleaned out, this is the week to do it.
* Also, if you have a separate freezer, now is the time to do a quick clean out/ organization in order to fit in those holiday extras. I store my extra flour, cream cheese, butter as well as extra turkeys, hams and a number of other items in the freezer to help them last longer.
* Make your menu and shopping list for Thanksgiving now. Include large zipper type bags to store leftovers since they fit easily in the fridge and make cleanup easy.
* Don’t forget to check how clean your oven is in order to make sure it won’t smoke or catch fire when you cook your Thanksgiving fare or prepare to do other holiday baking. This was part of the week seven tips.
* Recheck your gift lists and see what you can buy or plan to buy soon. Mark off the stuff you’ve bought and save those receipts.
* Here are some easy skillet dinners to help you get supper on the table fast.
Each week I promise to update you with how WE are doing in preparations for Christmas. Here is our reality check.
Our Thanksgiving menu is set but we haven’t completed the shopping list or taken the time to check on the ingredients we already have on hand. The grocery ads will be out on Wednesday, in our area, so we have a few days.
The nightly kitchen habit is going pretty well and I have a refrigerator clean out on the agenda for this week.
My Christmas list is coming along well, but I am behind on my shopping. Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t been able to start shopping or get many gifts yet.
With 4 adults in our household we will draw names for our Christmas Stocking ornament exchange, but each of us will add a few things to the other stockings. Several of us are exchanging books and chocolate on Christmas Eve. A tradition from Iceland. We DO know that we will make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. We start them the night before, let them rise in the refrigerator and bake them first thing in the morning. We definitely will be going to church, because worshipping the Savior is what Christmas is all about.
COUNTDOWN – REVIEW:
If you haven’t been following along, it’s okay. You can go back to the links below, to get started, or jump in right where you are.
On week ten you were encouraged to start writing out your Christmas gift lists.
Week nine plans included a family meeting to make some decisions about the traditions and activities you and your family want to carry out together, and to make a start at organizing your calendar. It also included a reminder to make certain you have your tickets and reservations for Thanksgiving or Christmas travel. The “last weekend of October sales” were a reminder to start some Christmas shopping in stores or online. With these, you’re on your way toward an organized, relaxing Christmas!
Week eight had reminders to start a new kitchen cleaning habit and do a reality check.
Week seven encouraged you to check your oven and set up your outside lighting and more.
Next week we’ll talk about black Friday weekend shopping and cyber Monday preparation!
Marjie Briggs is a Family and Consumer Scientist /Home Economist, who researches year round to help you find the very best priced deals and organizational hints for your family.