Binder Series- Holidays and Special Occasions Binder

This week's binder feature is my Holiday Planning Binder... My cover is from Clean Mama Printables.

I normally love decorating and usually change decorations every month.  This year with being unemployed so long (had some bouts with depression too) and things being so crazy with my husband being in school we didn't really do much decorating may- august.  And for some reason i can't get in the holiday spirit for Christmas so our Christmas decorating is lacking.  Our plan was to always do Christmas decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving... and we did... sortof.  As of today (wednesday) the tree is up, lights are on (although we only did lights on the tree and one strand across the beam that goes across where we live in the basement- normally there would be lights around the windows and doors too) but not many ornaments.  I did a few today.  And most of the other decorations- candles, signs, odds and ends are up too. So it's mostly done.  But, I just can't get into the holiday spirit.  I printed some craft ideas off pinterest to work on over the next few weeks so maybe that will help.

My decorating has always been haphazard... no real plans, but this binder will (hopefully) help change that.

First I have monthly calendars from nest Effect for each month.  Then I have holiday planning sheets for the major holidays behind the month they fall in.

These are from Clean Mama and they all pretty much look like this just with different colors.  has a place to write menu, guests if you are doing a party, decorations, traditions, and To do list for each holiday.  There is even one for birthdays

Normally we do the same decorations for the whole month for whatever holiday falls in that month- Feb-Valentines, March- St pats.  If two holidays fall in the month, I will decorate one from the beginning of the month till the holiday and then the other after the first is over until the end of the month.  Next year, I believe St. pats and Easter fall in the same month.  We are Irish so St. pat's decorations will probably stay up until a few days before Easter, but we shall see.  I plan to start adding religious holidays that we don't really celebrate but want our kids to know about too, so will add sheets to help plan for those, as well as other world holidays, just so our kids can develop cultural sensitivity.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are bigger holidays than some of the others... so I have special pages for them.  I will show you Thanksgiving today and Christmas on Thursday.  Besides the monthly calendar and Thanksgiving Planning Sheet I have:

This Guest list from List your Way.  Sorry these are blurry- I am not feeling well and weak so I was shaking while taking them.  I know my main sheet has a guest list but this one expands to include a RSVP column, dish they are bringing, and allergy columns.

Next is a baking planner.  Right now, since we don't have a house, we usually go somewhere for Thanksgiving, but at some point we will probably host it, so here I can plan cooking.

Next is a family tradition sheet where I can keep better track of our traditions.  On the main planning sheet it only list traditions, this expands it into materials you might need to buy or prepare and other notes.  Currently our only Thanksgiving tradition is our Thanks Board.  We will probably add more at some point.

Next is a decor inventory sheet.  We usually decorate big for Thanksgiving (ha, i said usually- I have only been married for 2 years, oh well).  So it's nice to have this bigger sheet to list decorations.

Next is a budget sheet.  We live on a budget here, so its nice to have this extra breakdown for the holiday.

Next is a Black Friday Shopping List.  I didn't go this year (mainly because we had no money), but I usually do most of my Christmas shopping on Black Friday, plus we save big purchases for the awesome black friday deals.  Past Black Friday deals- A new Printer, a washer/dryer, our dyson, and a blu-ray player.

Well that is my planner up through the month of November.  Come back on Thursday for my Christmas planning section.

Now it's your turn... how do you organize for the holidays?  Do you like to decorate all year long or do you usually only decorate for the 3 biggest decorating holidays- Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

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