Who's got ideas for making Christmas easier or extra fun? It might be fun to share ideas. In a meeting the other day, we went around the circle discussing this topic. It was fun and helpful.

One of my friends said that, in her family, everyone (men, too) helps prepare Christmas dinner. It takes the burden off any one person, and they enjoy visiting with each other while they prepare the meal.

Another friend suggested that there's no need to stress over dusting all your furniture before you decorate. She said just put your decorations up and worry about the dust when you take them down!

One of my ideas pertains to storage of ornaments. Get some large boxes and wrap them like Christmas presents. Be sure to wrap them in a way that allows you to open the boxes. Use these decorated boxes for ornament storage. Once you decorate the tree, put the storage boxes under the tree--like presents. This accomplishes a few things. You don't have to put the boxes back in their closet. Your tree looks like it has presents under it from day 1. You have your boxes handy when you're ready to take the tree down. When you go to unwrap gifts, just be sure not to unwrap your storage boxes!!! (You can tell the difference if you do NOT put gift cards on the storage boxes!)

An idea that I saw on tv the other day was to use the paper or tissue etc that you pack the ornaments under your tree skirt....in order to make it look lofty and especially with white tree skirts...makes it look like snow.

Another idea I saw was to put the tree stand inside a giant pot ....covers the often ugly stand and often times makes the tree stand up higher off the ground making more room for presents as well as getting the tree and ornaments up out of the way of children and pets (we've already lost one ornament to curious chewing puppy syndrome)