Organized Rolls.

This year has been one that included a lot of purging and re~organizing. For years, I've had a very lovely vintage wooden box that holds our Christmas gift bags, bows, tissue paper, ribbons, and gift boxes. In our closet, my dresser has two long drawers at the bottoms that holds all our regular wrapping paper, gift bags and tissue paper. I felt like Martha Stewart the day I set that up when the kids were little. So much easier to be ready for holidays and celebrations when the wrapping piece is organized. However, the one area I had not figured out was the long rolls of Christmas wrap. They ended up in the back of a closet, or in the new cottage, behind the door in the linen closet. It's a walk in space, so there is room. But at times, I'd walk in, only to see a few of the rolls knocked over if someone came in to get more toothpaste or fresh sheets. The answer was easy ~ we needed some type of container to store the rolls in. I decided last week when I had an afternoon to just chill, and started googling. And found the most amazing option that arrived at our door a few years later. It feels good to be so organized now.

Photo #1 is the mess that was prior to my order. Varied rolls, always falling over! Photo #2 is the new option, ready to be put to work. Photo #3 is the finished task, with all the rolls neatly stored and secure. I love there is also extra space for bows as well as 2 big pockets for extra tissue or anything that is more flat but needs to be stored. And finally, photo #4 is showing how neat and compact this option has turned out to be. No more mess in our linen closet! This can also be stored under a bed but I prefer to not use the space under any beds to store items ~ I would probably forget they are there and then head out to buy more items! 

So how do you stay organized for Christmas?

~ Chy

Christmas Eve.

It's Christmas Eve. In our little cottage, this is the day we finish up our baking ~ today we're making butter tarts, shortbread cookies, gingerbread, more confetti (our "test batch is almost done) and then putting our gingerbread house together. Music on, gifts are wrapped, the kitchen will be smell like Heaven and we have some pre-Christmas wishes to send by phone later. Yesterday we had a little Christmas celebration with my mom at her care home. They've asked that families visit before the big day but not on the big day as they had an outbreak and though it's over, they hope to have the residents be all well tomorrow. I was okay with this as every year since my mom has lived there, there has been an outbreak at Christmas and we've not had visits with her on those days. It would have been fun to maybe bring her home this year but they were very adamant so we made the best of it and had great fun yesterday. Hopefully next year we'll be together!

After our baking is done, we're going to shovel. We've had very little snow this week. It has been bitterly cold but fortunately, we had no where to go, other than we trekked in to town yesterday to get our fresh ingredients for dinner tomorrow, visit mom, take our dgs to his kidney ultrasound, do our final end of year banking, a trip to the liquor store for special drink ingredients and a last check of the mail. By the time we headed home, the snow had started and it was scary driving on the highway in the blowing wind. Thankfully, it's not a long drive (we're less than 10 minutes from town), but it was still pretty scary. I can't imagine what it's been like for those who have been travelling to visit with family for the holidays. It's warming up here in Alberta, Canada. We were having extreme weather with  - 46 C temps with the windchill. But today, it's a very balmy - 18 C out here in the big woods. In the next few days, it will climb up to single digits, so we're feeling quite blessed that we haven't had the snow and other weather that many communities across Canada and in the States are experiencing. Not sure why it has hit us but we know it will likely be our turn at some point. For now, we're beyond blessed and grateful.

I'll have lots of posts over the next few days as we share our holiday celebrations. Wishing you and your family a beautiful day as you get ready for the big day. And hope wherever you are, you're safe, warm and healthy. 

Merry Christmas my beautiful blogging buddies!

~ Chy