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A Low-Stress, High-Magic, Christmas Game Plan, so Every Magic Maker can Enjoy Christmas
If Christmas somehow manages to sneak up on you every single year, even though it is quite literally on the same date, welcome. You are among friends.
I love Christmas. Like, deeply love Christmas. But I do not love the bit where December suddenly becomes one giant admin exercise filled with gifts, groceries, wrapping paper, events, stockings, school things, family plans and someone inevitably realising they need batteries on Christmas Eve.
So this year, I’m doing things differently.
I’ve created a Low-Stress Christmas Planner designed to spread the boring bits across the weeks leading up to Christmas so that December can actually feel festive.
The planner is currently up to Week 6 (10 weeks until Christmas) and I’ll be adding the next set of tasks every week right up until Christmas. That means you If you come back to this page each week you'll see a new week for you to download and add to your planner.
Photo: Our first family picture with our fur baby - we still get photos now, with him included, but we go a bit extra and all wear match pjs.
The whole point: less stress, more Christmas magic
This is not about doing more.
It is absolutely not about having the most organised pantry, the fanciest advent calendar or becoming the kind of person who has every present wrapped by October.
The idea is really simple: three manageable Christmas jobs each week.
Some weeks are about making decisions. Some are about buying things before the good stuff disappears. Others are about booking plans, sorting gifts or getting ahead on food. By spreading those decisions out, you avoid that horrible December feeling where everything suddenly becomes urgent at the exact same time.
And if one of the tasks doesn’t apply to your family? Skip it.
No Elf? Great.
Don’t do matching Christmas pyjamas? Also great.
Christmas lunch at someone else’s house? Even better.
This is a guide, not Christmas homework.
Photo: My first daughter was 18 months here and even now at 4 she still loves bandaids and water bottles - don't underestimate giving simple things at Christmas.
Why start Christmas planning now?
Right now is actually the sweet spot.
Christmas stock is properly landing in stores, popular items are starting to appear, events are opening for bookings and we’re close enough to Christmas that making decisions doesn’t feel completely unhinged.
But we’re also early enough that you still have options.
You can spread the cost of gifts instead of buying everything in December. You can book the things you actually want to do before the calendar fills up. You can grab the Christmas PJs in the right size instead of discovering only XXXS and 4XL are left.
And most importantly, you can decide what you actually want Christmas to look like before the season starts deciding for you.
Gift idea - My husband gets as creative as me, for Christmas a few years ago hhe got us tickets to see Annie and rather than giving us tickets he put our faces on the poster haha! It's so fun and cute.
So, if you're buying tickets to an event maybe you could get a little creative.
A Christmas planner you can keep coming back to
This isn’t a one-and-done Christmas checklist.
The planner will be updated every week, so bookmark this page or save the planner link and come back as we count down. Right now, it includes everything up to 10 weeks until Christmas, and each week I’ll add the next three jobs.
The goal is that by the time December arrives, most of the big decisions, bookings and shopping are already handled.
Then December can be for the good stuff.
Christmas lights in pyjamas. Watching the same terrible Christmas movie you watch every year. Baking something with your kids that looks nothing like the Pinterest photo. Carols. Friendsmas. Hot chocolates. Actually sitting down.
You know...Christmas.
If you've made it this far - yay!
Can I please inspire you to please do stockings for you and your partner, assuming you don't already, because they are the best.
They are fun, easy, can be cheaper and nolstagic.
These are the first stockings my husband and I have ever done and we've been together over a decade now.
Your Christmas does not need to look like Instagram
One of the easiest ways to make Christmas stressful is to accidentally collect everyone else’s traditions.
You see an activity advent calendar and suddenly you think you need one.
Someone has a December 1st box.
Someone else has matching family pyjamas, personalised sacks, homemade teacher gifts, a Christmas Eve board and an Elf with a full production budget.
Before you know it, you’ve created 47 additional jobs for yourself in the name of Christmas magic.
My rule this year is simple:
Keep the things that create magic. Lose the things that just create admin.
The planner is there to help you organise your Christmas, not build a bigger one.
