The MomSpeak

Ho, Ho, Ho. It’s late September and time to start decking the halls. Yes, school just started back and you’re swamped with all sorts of fall season stuff, and the economic news keeps getting worse,  but trust us, now’s the best time to start thinking about the December holidays. Really. For one thing, keeping ahead, really ahead of the rush will let you make considered decisions about what to buy the people on your list and allow you to spread out the cost of the season. First, that list. Since it’s early, you have the time to think really seriously and clearly about the people who absolutely must be on it, perhaps contacting those friends and family who might be amenable to either skip exchanging gifts altogether or to make a collective donation to a charity, or simply to set a date to get together for pizza to celebrate the holiday. Once you’ve made that list your first stop, preferably while you’re in your pjs and bunny slippers and not a creature is stirring, should be the internet. You can shop quietly at your leisure, comparing prices among sites, even discovering possibilities you hadn’t thought of. With the economy so stressed, lots of sites are eliminating shipping charges to get your business., so you’re not even compromising cost for convenience. While you’re at it, reconsider wrapping those gifts. This is the time to get really creative – and you don’t even need to be really creative to do it. Start saving the comics pages of your newspaper to wrap kids’ gifts in. Buy several rolls of plain brown wrapping paper now – it’s very inexpensive – and begin collecting different colored yarns instead of expensive ribbon. As the season gets really close, your kids can help make and decorate gift cards by using cookie cutters to shape pieces of colored paper already on hand.

 If you’re one of the lucky ones who’s gifted at crafts and you seriously make your own gifts and cards, now’s the time to stock up on supplies and begin your work. If you go into Rachel Ray or Martha Stewart mode at holiday time, make another list of what you’ll be making and baking and slip a few of the ingredients that will keep -  the extra bags of flour and sugar, the pounds of butter that will freeze, the dried fruit that lasts forever - into your grocery cart each week so you won’t feel the impact of getting it all on one huge check-out bill in December. If you really need a lot and have space, buy these things in bulk. Anything you can start baking and freezing now?  Do it, and save yourself the frenzy later on.