A little something for you planners-

 It's finally hot outside!!! At the Fish house, that means time to plan Christmas!!! I know, we were just there! But normally by now I have a pretty good plan and this year, things are a little different.

So I had started doing the themed boxes every other year. It was nice because they can be done on any budget. But when we did it in 2021, we went way too overboard. And guess what? The kids' interests haven't changed much (I'll do a different post on theme boxes if I haven't already, for those who would like to use that idea).

This morning I woke up and was browsing Pinterest a bit and came up with these ideas for Christmas 2023. I'll talk to the kids today and see what they are thinking. I'm pretty sure I know which ideas they'll love most, but we'll see if they prove me wrong yet again.

A. A trip during Christmas, probably to Utah

    1. This will mean probably no gifts, unless Santa brings them one

    2. I do have to figure out the work schedule thing.

B. Serve a Family

    1. We'd either pick a family with at least half as many kids or choose some angel tree cards

    2. Again, this would mean instead of their gifts- which I would LOVE to see them pick, but I don't know if the littles are at that maturity level yet.

C. Christmas Bucket List- Imma be honest with you- we don't do traditionally fun stuff hardly ever. I'm so tired and broke during Dec because I'm trying to make their gifts or wrap their gifts or whatever that all the stuff we've wanted to do- rarely happens. So instead of Christmas morning gifts in the traditional sense, all of Dec would be a gift

    1. We could do 12 Days of Christmas for someone

    2. Bake/make candy/ deliver

    3. Gingerbread Houses

    4. The lights at Coney Island

    5. Making snowflakes

    6. Popcorn and Cranberry Garland

    7. Whatever else I pretend doesn't exist during Dec because I"m too tired

D. An Experience

    1. A future trip to Utah. Or to see some historical stuff, but it would be Utah.

    2. Zoo membership

    3. Mini Trip Plans

E. Give to Our House- I am pretty sure they won't pick this one. But I love this idea!

    1. Paint for the bedrooms & the Bengals Den

    2. A better carpet cleaner

    3. Outside furniture/toys

    4. Stairs slide

    5. Organizers

    6. Small Furniture (desks, bookshelves, etc)

    7. Artwork

F. Date Nights. I'll do a post about these, too. We've done the planning part of this, but the follow through was a little bit sad because we ran out of the funds. So this time, we'd do the planning NOW and present the dates WITH THE FUNDS/SUPPLIES for Christmas

G. Family Business Startup- My kids are always trying to earn money for this or that. This would be an actual plan on how to do that.

    1. A little Dave Ramsey business book for the whole family/charts/planning pages

    2. Ideas by Age

    3. Startup supplies/Funds

    4. Vending opportunities

I'm 99% sure they are going to pick a trip to Utah. I highly doubt we can swing it AT Christmas because of the way my work goes, but maybe they'll be ok with the plans to go for Spring Break. We wanted to do spring break 2023, but couldn't swing it.