Oh, what’s occurring?

Did you see it? Did you watch the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special? I absolutely loved it, in fact I loved Christmas as a whole. I had a stinking cold, ungrateful children but I finally managed to relax! I ate until I couldn’t eat anymore and drank more than I should have. I watched tv every morning in my pjs until midday and most importantly I got to spend time with my boys and my other half.

Christmas 2019 was insane! Every year Christmas is busy (thankfully!) but I’m happy to say 2019 was my best in years. Obviously it came at a price as my family suffered a bit and stress levels were high but now I look back I’m so happy with everything we achieved and it meant I felt I deserved my two weeks off with the family more than ever.

It was my eighth Christmas since starting Miss Shelly Designs and I have learnt a few tricks along the way on how to juggle my family and my business. And here are my top tips:

1. Start your Christmas shopping now. Seriously, start collecting little bits throughout the year for the kids and make the most of the sales.
2. Pre-prepare food. Freeze dishes ready if you can. You’ll feel worse if you are just eating rubbish every day for convenience. Our best find this year was All Plants. Vegan, plant based food which was absolutely delicious! Full of goodness and you just pop them in the microwave.
3. Make sure you have enough packing and postage materials. You don’t need that stress during the busy Christmas period so have lots of boxes, tape and postage labels at the ready.
4. Book ahead. Book Santa visits, family trips, ice skating etc in September/October. Add everything to your calendar on your phone and then print out November and December and stick it on your fridge so you and your family know what’s going on. Add school plays, carol concerts, Panto, football practise - everything!
5. Get food delivery. I had a smart pass with Ocado last year. They gave it to me in January. I haven’t used it much but during the build up to Christmas I used it 2-3 times a week. I can’t rate them highly enough. Always a slot available for next day delivery and very rarely any substitutes. If we had two all year I’d be surprised!
6. Do something with your family every weekend. I know it’s hard when business is busy but having something booked like pantomime where you have to take 3 hours off with your favourite people will really help with the guilt and force you to take a break and enjoy the festive season.
7. Ditch the cards. I know this is rich coming from someone who sells cards for a living but just give to your nearest and dearest. You don’t need to send a card to everyone. This year we donated to Crisis instead of sending cards. We used the money we would have spent on cards and postage and brought a homeless person a place to sleep and eat for Christmas. We then put a photo of us on Facebook to all our friends and family to wish them a merry Christmas as our Christmas card.
8. Accept help. Friends and family always offer to help but I usually feel too rude to accept thinking they are just being kind. But my friends really did want to help as they enjoyed it. What is a chore to us is a novelty to them. My friends sat round the table and had a natter and packed orders and they loved it. It also gave me a chance to catch up with them all and have some company!
9. Enjoy your Christmas! You bloody deserve it! Extend those delivery dates and ignore the enquires until after Boxing Day. You can’t do anything until the post office opens anyway!
10. Lastly, don’t get ill!! Everything goes to pot then! Ha ha ha. Take vitamins, get your flu jab! Unfortunately I didn’t follow my own advice last year and got rather ill. It took forever to get over it as I couldn’t rest.

So those are my top tips for Christmas! I feel rested and excited about the new year. I now have a head buzzing with ideas for Miss Shelly and I’m looking forward to getting started. Thank you for all of your orders and support and I wish you all the happiest of New Years. It’s going to be a bloody good one 🙌