Hi Friends! It’s Rose here from @littlemissrose on Instagram and YouTube.  Christmas is quickly approaching and with the holiday period being such a busy time, I’m going to show you how I prepare for Christmas in my bullet journal with this Christmas planning spread.

Supplies needed:

• Archer & Olive notebook
• Black fineliner or pen
• Stamps, brush pens, felt pens, stickers, anything for decorating your pages

Before putting pen to paper, first think about your Christmas plans and note down the most important things about the Christmas that you need to remember or plan.  For me it’s usually the following:

• Gifts
• Lunch/dinner menu
• Guest list
• Decorations
• Any important events/dates

Creating your Christmas Planner Spread

Using a pencil, sketch out boxes and headings for each of your important holiday items.  Think about the amount of space you’ll need to plan out each item, for example, a gift list is usually quite long so you’ll need more space than your Christmas menu.

Once you’re set on your layout you can add headings using a brush pen, stamps or stickers. 

Using a black fineliner or any black pen, draw in the boxes.  You can use a ruler if you want a neat and tidy look or you can just freehand your boxes.  I like to go around the boxes twice to give my pages a more fun and rustic look like this:

I used clear stamps and distress oxide to add a heading to my page, and the numbers for my date boxes.

Finally, using some Crayola supertips and a black pen, I added some simple Christmas doodles of holly and candy canes to my spread.  This is the final product:

You can watch this whole process in the video below:

Let’s take a closer look at the Christmas Planner Spread!

Holiday Plans - a mini calendar

On the left hand side I’ve created a little mini calendar cover the few days before and after Christmas.  I will use this to plan when I do my food and grocery shopping for Christmas and Boxing day (the day after Christmas).  I will also use it to not down any special events, parties, appointments that need to attend.  This will be particularly useful as this time of year is always so busy.

Christmas Menu

This box is self explanatory, I will use this to decide on my Christmas dinner menu.  I will then expand on this by creating a new spread for a Christmas Grocery Shopping list on a different page, listing everything I need to buy in order to create my meal.  

Guest List

Also another self explanatory box where I’ll list everyone I intend on inviting to Christmas dinner and noting here who will actually attend.

Holiday To-Dos

This box will contain a list of things that we need or want to do over the Christmas period.  Things such as buy a tree, go see Christmas lights, attend a Christmas pantomime etc.

Gift Planner

On the right hand side of my Christmas Planner spread I have a gift planner.  Here I will write down all the people that I need to buy gifts for and the gifts I plan on buying or making for them.  Having a list like this before you head out Christmas shopping can save you a lot of time at the shops during a crowded holiday period.  If you want you can also include the amount you plan on spending on each person.

Decorations

Here I will list all the decorations I have to put out and maybe list any new ones I want to buy for this year.

Don’t Forget

This box is like a catch-all for things that are important and can’t be forgotten, but don’t really have a space elsewhere…. Like calling a family member or putting out cookies for Santa!

I hope you’ve found this blog post helpful in planning out your coming holiday period.  Remember that this spread I created for myself so it has the items that I find most important for me to plan out. For your own Christmas Planning spread you can add or replace anything that you feel is more useful to you.  You can also change the layout to suit your own needs.

If you think that the Christmas Planning spread that I’ve created is perfect for your needs, then you can download your own copy here.

If you do create your own Christmas planner spread, we’d love to see it so please share by tagging @littlemissrose and @archerandolive in your creations!