5 random, fun, & practical holiday tips + traditions

Ready or not, Christmas is coming! I’m on schedule with shopping, wrapping, and managing our calendar. I could be derailed at any moment with a sick kid or schedule snafu, but my stress level is still in zone green. Today I want to share some really random holiday tips that could be relevant to your life this week. But first, take a deep breath and don’t forget to enjoy the precious people in your life.

Wrap stocking stuffers with color–coded tissue paper

This is a controversial topic in our family. My mom…er, I mean Santa…always wrapped our stocking stuffers. That’s a whole lot of work though! Wrapping a pack of tic tacs? Really? My sister-in-law came from a family that didn’t wrap their stockings, but my brother apparently wanted to be surprised the tiny wrapped rectangle that rattled was tic tacs. We all come from different customs with our stockings. I like to wrap our stocking stuffers ahead of time in tissue. I have one additional tip…I color code the tissue for each family member so it won’t matter there aren’t gift tags. That way I can toss them all in one big bag and pull them out on Christmas eve and put the gifts in their respective stockings. I know Jack is blue, Annabelle, is pink, etc. Also, Costco has an amazing price on very cute Christmas tissue paper.

Use tulle instead of bows or ribbon

I stink at executing pretty Christmas bows. I don’t have time or patience to make the package look picture perfect. I discovered that tulle looks really nice on packages, it’s cheap if you buy a giant roll at a craft store, and no matter how many presents get stacked on it, you can fluff it right back into a bow. Buy cute wrapping paper and add some tulle. If you can tie your shoe, you can tie these bows. Voila!

Santa app – Capture the Magic

Last year I discovered this really cute and FREE app that added to the excitement of Santa coming. My oldest got in on the fun and we set up a camera the night before to catch Santa. Then I used THIS app to create a picture we allegedly captured. The kids are still talking about it a year later. It was a special way to keep the magic of Santa’s visit alive in our home. I think I only have one believer left this year.There are free “stickers” to use, but I will admit that I splurged and spent $.99 on a pack of Santa stickers. I’m so painfully frugal that it was a big deal I paid for something within an app, but it was totally worth it.

Time-lapse presents

We like to set up a camera in the corner of the room and take a time-lapse video of our Christmas morning. I’m sure you already have your Christmas tree up, but it’s fun to do a time-lapse of tree decorating too. Mental note that tip for next year. Sad music with a time-lapse video of the tree coming down works too, but that’s borderline depressing. 🙂

Snowball fight

This last tip is for the warm states with no snow. Moving from the mid-west to the West Coast has been a wonderful experience, but I REALLY miss snow around the holidays. A few years ago, my Grandma sent me a cute bucket of plush snowballs. We started a tradition where we have a surprise snowball fight when the older kids get home from school. I saw at our Target this week that they had a tube of snowballs for $3 in the dollar section which ironically is not always $1. 🙂

What are your holiday tips and traditions?