How to Keep Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year | Your Home For God
How to Keep Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year | Your Home For God

Week 5 of the Series on “How to Schedule For a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas.” Let’s keep Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! I want to encourage you not to worry if you don’t perfectly finish everything on the schedule each week! When you plan and schedule, each little thing that gets finished ahead of time helps!  A calendar with events calmly thought through! Asking God to help you plan! Extra time, calm emotions–peace–that’s what I’m giving you! So, you can focus on Jesus Christ’s birth, and honor Him in your Christmas! That’s what makes it the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Keep Christmas The Most Wonderful Time of The Year | Your Home For God
Keep Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

When you see this detailed schedule, maybe it’s not obvious, but I’m actually a spontaneous person at my core. Sometimes I resist doing the things I know I need to do ahead of time, because I don’t feel like doing them emotionally, or in my flesh:) I’m sorely tempted to give in to my flesh. If you’re like me, this is when we have to just Do. The. Next. Thing. Elisabeth Elliot read the poem by that name years ago, and this phrase helps me to be more disciplined when I use it to talk to myself. I focus on just today, just the one thing I need to do next. This helps me to keep from being overwhelmed! And, I remember that I will be happier afterwards if I act in a disciplined way now.

Click on the links below to Read all the Posts in “How to Schedule for a Calm, Christ-centered Christmas” (8-Weeks’ Schedule):

Christ-mas Plan to Be Ready to Celebrate Christ | Your Home For God
Christ-mas Plan to Be Ready to Celebrate Christ!

Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links, which just means that I may get a small commission if you click on an affiliate link and as a result make a purchase. I only recommend products and services that I use myself, know to be excellent quality, and/or know will help and benefit you! 

Be Disciplined to Keep it the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

When I do only what I feel like, I pay for it later. My flesh doesn’t want to plan ahead and do things for the next season. But, I will be so glad I did when that season rolls around! I encourage you to do what you can to Schedule for a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas! You’ll be so glad you did!

Right now, I don’t know why God is prompting me to be disciplined and ahead on my planning for Christmas especially, to plan for the next few months, but He knows. When we pray, and ask for direction, He gives it. He gives us wisdom, direction, and causes us to do those things that later we’ll be so glad we did!!! Like this week, for me.

The Peace in Being Ahead & Following Promptings

Over the years, I’ve realized that there is much peace in planning, scheduling, and doing things before the deadline. These were acquired skills that I was then able to teach my children when they were growing up. That doesn’t mean that we are all super disciplined now, but we’re better disciplined! It’s not rigid planning, because this behavior works hand-in-glove with responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Both are needed.

This week I batch-cooked a bit. I made 2 meatloaves and froze one. I baked cookies and put some in the freezer. We get organic chickens from a family at church, and picked some up recently. I roasted a chicken, and then made chicken soup from the carcass. It was more than my husband and I could eat.

8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself | Your Home For God
8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself!

This is an 8-week Schedule For a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas. I have given you ideas for what to do each week in order to be done with your major Christmas preparation by Thanksgiving. If you are beginning when this post is published, you still have time to complete the 8 weeks by Christmas! Plan to Be Ready to Celebrate Christ this Christ-mas! Here is the Schedule for Week 5. Read all the posts in the Series!

Get my All Is Calm Christmas Bundle to upgrade to get all the bonuses, including this 8-Weeks to A Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas Planner/Calendar of Printables:

8-Week Printables for a Calm Christ-Centered Christmas| Your Home For God

​8-Week Printables for a Calm Christ-Centered Christmas| Your Home For God

Week 5 Schedule: What to Do This Week for a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas

  • Buy ¼ of your Christmas gifts (you’re halfway done with your shopping!) (focus on those that need to be mailed or shipped first).
  • Address Final 1/3 of your Christmas Cards.
  • Will you sign the back of the picture? Do that, if so, or type up, print out and affix the info that will go on the back.
  • If you will write a Christmas letter, write a rough draft.
  •  Sign the last of your Christmas Cards.
  • Make or buy the Invitations for any parties or gatherings you are hosting.
  • Get the invites ready to send (if the party is the 1st or 2nd week of December, send them next week, and if the party is in the last 2 weeks of December, send by the 10th of November).

A sudden prompting  that I believe was from the Holy Spirit made me realize this would make a great meal for the neighbor who just had a baby! I’d wanted to bring a meal to them, and thought I’d wait for a few weeks or a month, since they had a lot of relatives helping them early on. This was perfect timing! I had also followed the prompting to use up some ingredients I had and try a new recipe I’d found for cookies!

“Ideas for Things You Can Do to Have a Christmas that is Christ-Centered”

Wendy Gunn

That’s perhaps the spontaneous side of me at work, but I know I felt a prompting to do these things, not necessarily that I felt like, “Oh, I’d really like to do this!” You know that difference. Now, afterwards, I’m so glad I batch-cooked, and followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit! Because, it got done, and it had been weighing on me. I encourage you to do those things first that are what I call “guilt-producers.” This is one of the reasons that getting ahead on Christmas tasks is so gratifying! Because instead of feeling guilty because you’re behind, you are praised and looked up to for being ahead, and that feels light and airy and lifts you up! The guilt-producers weigh twice as much on your mind and use up twice as much energy!

Ideas What to Do With Your Extra Time This Christmas | Your Home For God
Ideas What to Do With Your Extra Time This Christmas!

How Preparation Keeps It The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I was totally undisciplined as a young person. A wreck. My dad’s dearest desire was that I would somehow learn cause and effect! I have vivid memories of running out of gas a block from home (and he had to come and help me), of being late to virtually everything, of the looks on people’s faces when I let them down by not doing what I said I would do. I hope that people don’t remember me as that person, and I’m thankful that God allows us to grow and change.

I now have the sense of satisfaction that comes from being prepared. The joy of being responsible, of doing things ahead, by God’s grace. The LORD has allowed me to change my reputation, and I believe when you schedule, and train your children to do things before the last minute, you will all enjoy more peace, and bring glory and honor to God’s Name. This is the main reason to do it.

And, remember that you and your children can change! Don’t be discouraged if you see your children acting immaturely, and not getting things done until the last minute (or maybe at all!). Especially give your children grace to change and grow up! Pray for them. Train them, and keep on encouraging them that they can become who God made them to be! Remember that they won’t always be like this, if they are super scatterbrained, or irresponsible, now.

8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself | Your Home For God
8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself!

Don’t let circumstances discourage you

Children aren’t naturally planners and organized. They have to be taught! No one is born disciplined! We have to learn that, too.

There are many reasons why you may be discouraged right now, and find it hard to prepare for Christmas to be “the most wonderful time of the year.” Only one of them might be your child who may be causing you great frustration because they are so last-minute, because they aren’t disciplined. I know this happened to me as a mom, and my own lack of discipline caused me much frustration, over the years! Sometimes it still does, because I’m not perfect! But, I want us to have the possibility of the most wonderful time of the year this Christmas!

We can effect change in our future. We can have a better Christmas and a much better new year! I have been following my own advice and this schedule to prepare for Christmas, and I want to encourage you not to beat yourself up if you’re not perfectly up to date on the Schedule for a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas! Everything you do ahead will help! As it gets closer, you’ll feel more motivation, too! Your mindset matters a lot.

I live in Minnesota. Snow is usually here by Christmas, but not in the fall, when I have you starting to work on Christmas planning. I’m a visual learner, very influenced by my surroundings. Are you? It’s so important to know your learning style, what affects you, those elements and conditions that hinder and help you with your plans and goals! And, also, to know your child’s learning style, and what helps them, and hinders them.

Keep Christmas The Most Wonderful Time of The Year | Your Home For God
Keep Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Help your mindset to prepare ahead for Christmas

We had snow arrive this week!!! Record-breaking early snow! This was, for me, a help to thinking about and planning for Christmas! It made it seem very real that Christmas is around the corner, and I need to prepare. Some people put on Christmas music, or surround themselves with visual stimuli to make them think about Christmas, and help them get “in the mood”! Do what works for you! You can change your mindset!

I don’t worry about being completely up to date all the time on my schedule. I am really into batching and time-blocking. They help me immensely! Batching my housework and cleaning, I batched back when we were Homeschooling, I batch cooking, batch during my day, and over the course of a week. I get on a roll, and do a lot of one thing at once. I block out sections on the weekly schedule I make, and batch different kinds of tasks together. This week I was feeling under the weather a bit, and while laying around, I addressed a lot of Christmas cards. Normally that would be something I would do in the evening. There’s a block of time batched for it. I simply exchanged one block of time for another, and batched a different task.

I had done batch cooking earlier in the week, so though I wasn’t feeling well, I had food in the freezer, and didn’t have to worry about meals. I could work on catching up with the Schedule for a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas! Because I’m planning ahead, there’s no feeling of pressure at all. I’m beginning to think about what special activities we may want to do to focus on Christ’s birth. I have time to think about what Advent activities we may want to do, and to prepare! I have time to do some research! To order supplies, books, or anything I need, because I have a schedule, and a plan.

Christ-mas Plan to Be Ready to Celebrate Christ | Your Home For God
Christ-mas Plan to Be Ready to Celebrate Christ!

What if Christmas isn’t the most wonderful time of the year for you

To be honest, for many years I didn’t feel that Christmas was “the most wonderful time of the year”! And, for many, it isn’t. It may be lonely. It may be a time when the family strife, or brokenness, or memories of the past, cause you sadness, depression, or grief.

Putting on a fake smile, and pretending that you’re happy is not what I have in mind. We must take all our sorrows, griefs, and cares to Jesus Christ, and allow God to restore us, to help us, to make us whole, and to fill us with Himself. He understands our brokenness. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knows.

Planning ahead, getting things done before they need to be, will help your frazzled nerves, your loneliness, your emotional instability. You need time to sit at Jesus’ feet, to think about Him, and meditate on the Scriptures. You need to pray.

8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself | Your Home For God
8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself!

A Christ-Centered Christmas Defined Uniquely

If your circumstances don’t allow for this time to meditate and think, you need the Schedule for a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas even more. You may have to work a little harder at the beginning to accomplish everything, but the peace and tranquility that the preparation gives your mind and emotions is worth it. It reminds me of when I have too many tabs open on my computer and it locks up. When I close some of the tabs, it frees it up and my computer can “think” again. As I  finish up tasks related to Christmas early, my mind and emotions are freed up to “think” and to contemplate, to be creative, to pursue things I love related to celebrating “the most wonderful time of the year.”

You are uniquely-created by God, and your family is unique. That means your Christmas celebration will look different from mine or someone else’s! That’s perfectly fine! Follow God’s leading! If doing less is what you choose, great. If your list looks very different from mine, that’s fine. Whatever is on your list, do it ahead, and prepare.

Ideas What to Do With Your Extra Time This Christmas | Your Home For God
Ideas What to Do With Your Extra Time This Christmas!

What will you do with the extra time you have This Christmas?

You will have time, as you get things done early, to do things like:

  • Fill a Christmas box for a needy child
  • Give a gift to the child of someone in prison
  • Go and visit an elderly grandparent, aunt or uncle, or neighbor to help them prepare for their Christmas, or just help them in general
  • Make a gift to take to your neighbors (see this post for how to make and give a pie-in-a-jar)
  • Share the true meaning of Christmas with others with a printed out message attached to your neighbors’ gifts
  • Share the gospel in stores and restaurants through gospel tracts and the Candy-cane story (with a candy-cane gift tied on)
  • Celebrate Advent meaningfully

What will you do with the extra time you have this Christmas, because you have a Schedule for a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas?

Honoring Christ Makes It the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This is Week 5 of the Series on “How to Schedule For a Calm, Christ-Centered Christmas.” Let’s keep Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! To recap, don’t worry if you don’t perfectly finish everything on the schedule each week! When you plan and schedule, each little thing that gets finished ahead of time helps!  God will give wisdom. Be disciplined, and have a plan, but obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Your family is unique. God has a purpose for you. Extra time, calm emotions, peace–is what preparation will give you–what will you do with the extra time? 

One thing you can do is to be still and worship the LORD, praising God for sending His Son to live and die for our sins, and rise again to sit at the right hand of God. This plan was set in place from the beginning of time. God is our Ultimate Example of One Who plans. Plan to focus on Jesus Christ’s birth, and honor Him in your Christmas! That’s what will keep Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself | Your Home For God
8 Weeks Schedule to Be Ready to Give Yourself!

Click on the links below to Read all the Posts in “How to Schedule for a Calm, Christ-centered Christmas” (8-Weeks’ Schedule):

Go from Basket Case to Blessed this Christmas! Get my All Is Calm Christmas Workshop!

Have a Great Day Making Your Home For God!

Wendy Gunn at Your Home For God helps Christian women raise Godly kids, find & fulfill their purpose and achieve God's goals for their life.

I help Christian moms raise their kids according to Biblical principles, get organized to manage life, achieve their unique God-given goals and dreams, and fulfill God’s purpose for them to make a difference in the world through my workshops, courses, and coaching founded on Biblical principles. You are already successful in many areas. I can help you in those that you’re not. Dream big dreams, and see God transform and use your life in amazing ways! Let’s work together for your success!

In Your Home For God’s Store, discover resources to help you get organized, raise Godly kids, and have the support and encouragement to know who you are, know what God wants you to do to fulfill His purpose for your life, and achieve His unique goals for you!

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