The All-Year-Round Christmas Handbook

Book excerpt: With a few straightforward strategies and a perfectly practical planner, Tiffany Wood shows you how to jingle your way through the preparations, for Christmas from January to December. The All-Year-Round Christmas Handbook lends a helping hand to everyone who would like to create a kinder, more mindful, and homespun Christmas celebration. Juggling all manner of jobs at a time when expectations of festive fun are sky high means that effective planning and time management are vital. Organizational and creative tasks are divided into months, then weeks and days as you get nearer to Christmas. In the month before Christmas, each week has its own 'dashboard' for different activities—creating, cooking, eating, shopping, entertaining—plus planning pages you can fill in yourself. For future years, you can also download extra planner pages to fill in and keep using the link in the book.To save you time, there are recipes for handy cook-ahead dishes, simple meals, and store-bought shortcuts. Tiffany shows you how to wrap your gifts with style, and make crafty things with the leftover paper. There are also tips from Mrs and Mr Christmases around the world, with some different traditions you might like to try.