Well, here we are! It’s the final month of 2014, and it just so happens to be one of my favorite times of the year! If you’re like me, you can hardly believe that it’s December, because it literally feels like this year just began. Nonetheless, December is here, and I’m ready to have all of the Christmas fun! Before I talk about my goals for this month, let’s review what I accomplished last month.

November’s goals were to:

1. Purchase five Christmas presents. – Check! Actually, I bought more than five by November’s end and I don’t have many left to get!
2. Spend a week in Nashville while working as little as possible. – Check! Well, except for that part about not working. There were a couple of issues that I had to handle from afar. However, I learned a valuable lesson this time. I need to be sure other people handle their business before I leave. Most of the issues that arose on this trip were due to someone else not handling their tasks in a timely manner. Next time I plan to go out of town, I’ll work harder to encourage others to take care of things before I leave. Nonetheless, we had a great time! (Read a little about our trip here. More to come later!
3. Find a coffee to brew at home. – Check! I’m doing great at this! I’m still experimenting (and learning), but I’ve found a couple of creamers that I really like. I’m pleased with my progress.
4. Review my 2014 goals. – I mentioned that I’d probably move this one to December, and I did. There was just no time for goal review in November!
5. Finalize 2015 goals.- I wouldn’t say that these are finalized, but I did make some progress on deciding which would stay and go. I’ll continue to work on this in December.
6. Enjoy this season. – Check! I’m happy that I gave myself a bit of a break in November. I enjoyed Thanksgiving dinners with family and prepping for the Christmas season. It’s funny though…even with less stringent goals for November, I still got a lot done!

After looking through these goals and planning for December, I decided to make most of December’s goals revolve around the Christmas season. I’m already booked up for most of the weekends in December (and lots of weekdays), so my main goal is going to be being present at all of these parties and events. This is a lovely time of year, and I want to enjoy it! Without further ado, here are my goals for the month of December:

1. Put up two Christmas trees. – I’ve had two Christmas trees for the last two years, and I’ve love it! This may prove to be a little more difficult than planned because the legs to one of my trees seem to be missing. However, I think Amanda has saved the day!
2. Host two Christmas events at our house. – We have two events already on the calendar, so this shouldn’t be a problem. I’m excited to host events at our new house!
3. Attend at least one public Christmas event. – There are a ton of great holiday events around Monroe-West Monroe, and I want to make it a point to attend at least one of them. With so many private parties and family events, this might be a little tough. In an ideal world, I’d go to every single Christmas event, but I know that won’t be possible. Instead, I made my goal a little more realistic…I want to attend at least one. (But the more the merrier, of course!)
4. Watch two Christmas movies. – We kicked this plan off by watching Elf over Thanksgiving weekend. I just couldn’t wait to get started! It’s likely that we’ll watch way more than two holiday movies, but with such a busy schedule, I didn’t want to push it. Home Alone is my next pick. What holiday movies are you hoping to see??
5. Finalize 2015 goals. – Enough with the fun stuff. It’s time to handle up on my 2015 goals. I plan to make the final list and create quarterly tracking sheets for monitoring my progress throughout the year. Can you tell that I take goal setting pretty seriously?? I even ordered this shirt from Duck & Dressing this morning. Too funny! Side note: They’re having a pretty awesome Cyber Monday sale…you should check it out!
6. Review 2014 goals. – Obviously, I’m bringing this over from last month. I mentioned before that I’m pretty much over 2014 goals. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I do want to spend a few minutes looking back over what I wanted to accomplish and how I did. I’ll be making time for that this month.

How about you? Have you started thinking about what you’d like to do next year?  How about this month? I hope your biggest goal is to have a splendid holiday season. If you’ve started working on your 2015 goals, share them with me! I love chatting goals/plans, and I’ll be happy to check in with you throughout the year. For now, let’s drink lots of hot chocolate and make Christmas lists galore. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Click here if you want to read more about my monthly and yearly goals.