Schedule Away!

This weekend, PBN and a new SC Johnson website, Right@Home, posed the question Do you have a schedule or a system to help you clean up, pack up and put away the holidays?

This past Monday, January 5, my kids went back to school. After almost two full weeks at home, it was a great return to the life I know. Hallelujah!

Being that we're Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas, we're one step ahead in the cleanup department because we're not taking down a tree or packing decorations away. At Hanukkah time, we take our menorah down from it's shelf and light the candles on each of the eight nights, but it's not exactly a put-a-giant-blow-up-menorah/dreidel-on-your-lawn type of holiday. We get together with alot of family to celebrate, make potato latkes (very greasy but oh so yummmm) and exchange presents. Once Hanukkah is on it's way out, Aaron's birthday is on it's way in, so our house is pretty much overrun with presents from mid-December through mid-January. The challenge here is going through the old toys to find places for the new toys and throwing out toys in ways that my kids won't notice.

Craig takes an annual holiday from work from Christmas through the New Year which allows us to spend some quality family time together. Our kids are not babies anymore so they are pretty independent in the morning when they wake up - Aaron goes downstairs and watches TV and Camryn plays in her crib, so many a morning over this vacation, we were able to sleep in. 9am or later. Some of you are pretty jealous, but we've paid our dues for sure.

So for almost two weeks at the end of 2008, we were on no schedule at all. We got up when we wanted to. Ate breakfast when we wanted to. Got dressed if we wanted to - and plenty of these days we spent in our pajamas until late in the afternoon. We got together with friends and did things as a family, but we enjoyed this down time immensely.

As of January 5, we're jolted back to a major schedule. Have to get to the bus stop on time, and it's now freezing so it's a bit difficult. Have to be more organized with lunch, playdates and carpools. Back to running Camryn to school, going food shopping (no more take out) and back to the work grind. We don't so much have a schedule to get cleaned up from the holidays, but rather have a schedule to get back on schedule. It's a hard time of year but schedule away - we are trying to start 2009 off on a great foot!