♪♫♪ … I’m dreaming of a white Christmas … ♫♪♫

With all this summer heat, I can’t be the only one dreaming of a white Christmas!?! Falling down in the snow and making a snow angel sounds like heaven right now… (sigh). I’m already done with Summer. Heat domes, drought, 100+ degree weather – and we’re just barely past June! Bleh. I’ve got company, though – the craft stores, the super-holiday-planners and even the Hallmark Corporation are on my team. Check out what my local Hobby Lobby shelves looked like when I was there last week.

It’s Christmas in July time!

Here’s a quick history lesson: Christmas in July is not an invented Hallmark holiday! This phrase first came to national attention when a 1940 film called “Christmas in July” debuted. It’s a cute little film about a man who is tricked into thinking he’s won a huge cash prize in a contest and what happens next.

People in the Southern Hemisphere have their cold months in June, July and August. Even though they celebrate Christmas with us northern folks in December, they also have Christmas in July or midwinter celebrations. In World War II, there were Christmas in July campaigns in 1944 and 1945 by the US Post office, Army and Navy to encourage folks to get their holiday packages mailed early for their service men overseas.

And yes, the Hallmark company celebrates Christmas in July by releasing the year’s keepsake Christmas ornaments and showing their Christmas movies during this hot summer month. If July isn’t early enough for you, there’s a holiday called LEON Day on June 25th (that’s NOEL spelled backward) that celebrates the calendar’s halfway point to Christmas Day.

There’s actually some method to this Christmas madness – it’s not entirely bad to start thinking about Christmas now, even if you’re more into flip-flops than freezing.

Set up a Christmas saving account

This is an account that you set up and save for all your Christmas needs. How much should you save? Take a good look at how much you spent on Christmas last year. (Where did you overspend? Do you need to increase your budget or lower it a little? Where can you cut back this year?) Once you’ve figured out the total amount you want to spend for Christmas, divide it by the number of months or weeks left until Christmas. In December, your Christmas savings will be fully funded, and you can savor the season instead of feeling pinched for extra money.

The best thing you can do is save all year long instead of trying to cram it in the last two months before Christmas hits. Start saving in January and stash away cash for the coming Christmas. That $1,000 will be a lot easier to bite off when you’re stashing away $83 a month. Dave Ramsey says’ “If you do it little by little, month by month, coming up with Christmas money won’t hit you like grandma getting knocked out by a reindeer in that crazy song.”

Make a Christmas Bucket List

The Christmas season is a tender time – there are a lot of emotions associated with the holidays. Hopefully, most of them are happy and cozy – but for many folks, overwhelm, grief, stress and depression are felt during “the most wonderful time of the year”. Heck, any of us can turn Grinchy pretty quick if overstimulated, stressed and over-extended!

One solution: plan your Christmas holiday intentionally. Every year, I grab my family ahead of December and ask them “what makes Christmas **Christmas** to you?” “What are your favorite traditions and activities?” It could be that during the discussion you find out an activity carried out every year “because it’s tradition” is one that nobody likes – that happened to me!

Growing up, my family had a large and fancy breakfast before opening Christmas presents every year. So when I married, of course we had the Christmas breakfast – because “it’s tradition!” After a few years, I started to suspect the breakfast might not be everybody’s idea of Christmas. But it continued: “it’s tradition!” Well, not long after, my little crew went into full on *mutiny* and refused to do the breakfast! They wanted a quick, easy, even *crappy* breakfast – and get right to the presents! After a small family summit, it was agreed that the breakfast would still happen, but monkey bread and milk would be the only thing on the menu. You know what? Christmas mornings have been SO much happier since then. Yes, for me, too – I don’t miss the big breakfast at all! We call our Christmas breakfast “Mutiny Monkey Bread” and we look forward to it every year. The story behind it makes it taste even better!

So, look over your activities, your food and your traditions. Meet together and chat about what’s important and what isn’t! I promise your holidays will be all the sweeter if you do.

Get Started on Handmade or Custom Christmas Gifts

How many times have you had a wonderfully unique gift idea for someone, and there was no time and/or money to make it happen? So frustrating! Handmade Christmas gifts are memorable and one-of-a-kind; but they also take lots of time to create. Another stress-buster is to think ahead about gift giving now, instead of December.

Just Give In and Embrace It!

I know I’m being a total Grinch here in July, cussing out all this heat! I can’t help it. Not even eating cold watermelon is helping my mood. But, there is a way to escape – I can just chuck it all, and dive into Christmas right now! LOL

You can too – it might be fun to just go whole hog and have a “Christmas in July” party with friends or your family. Go ahead and break out the holiday movies/specials, make your favorite Christmas treat, make a cold drink to chill you down, cut out some snowflakes, make a Christmas list, break out some games, and play those Christmas tunes! Don’t forget to add some Christmas magic with some random acts of kindness. It’s the best thing about the holidays. What a fun break from the hot temps outside!

So, what am I gonna do? I think I’ll aim a cold AC vent to blow right on me, grab a blanket, and tune into the Hallmark channel all this month. I bet Amazon won’t be too hurt if I start my Christmas list now, either… and who knows? I might even make monkey bread!

Merry Christmas, everybody.