Stress Less Holiday Tips: Stock up on Essentials

[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”lifted-both” width=”auto” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]This post is sponsored by Charmin. However, all thoughts and opinions are our own. #HolidaySavings[/dropshadowbox]

As I was paying for my items at the local drug store yesterday, the nice cashier remarked, “Christmas is only 6 weeks away.” The sound of my kids laughing behind me seemed to get deafening for one long moment and my palms started to sweat.

Six weeks isn’t too near. But Christmas being six weeks away means that Thanksgiving is next week. What?! How did that even happen!  

The weeks following Thanksgiving are normally a blur of stress and craziness.  This year I am determined to be the busy mom that stresses less. I am planning to reduce stress.

It sucks to run out of normal essentials when you have a house full of guests.

So this week I went out an stocked up on things that we always use! Being prepared does prevent unexpected and time wasting trips to the store.

Water 

Florida tap water is hard and many don’t like the way it tastes.  Since visitors have different tastes and preferences I like to stock up on bottled watter.

Hand Soap

With so many people in and out of the house during the holidays, the likelihood of catching a virus are dramatically increased. I make sure that there is plenty of  soap so that there is no excuse for anyone to skip this all important step in preventing illness.

Disposable Casserole Pans

If you get invited to as many get togethers as I do, (I have a huge family and there seems to be a birthday every weekend!) then it helps to stock up on these. Keeping track of your casserole dish can be difficult when you are at a big gathering.

Ingredients needed for your quick go to casserole or appetizer.

I usually bring cheese lumpia (fried spring rolls) and a corn bread casserole that my family must have at every family gathering. If you have the ingredients for a few quick casseroles on hand during the holidays, then you can avoid last minute runs to the grocery store.  The grocery stores are crowded this time of year! Save yourself the trip the day before Thanksgiving and buy what you need now.

Toilet Paper

When you have more guests than usual at your house, you might find yourself running out of toilet paper much quicker than you normally do.  Do yourself and your guests a favor and save someone from being stranded with an empty roll by stocking up on toilet paper ahead of time.

We love the softness and durability of Charmin Ultra Mega Rolls. Not only are they big and fluffy, they are 4x more absorbent than the leading 1000 sheet brand based on average usage. Less goes a long way.

We attempted to test how much longer the Charmin lasted over a competitor but the test didn’t go as well as I planned. Based on our results the competitor lasted much longer because after trying it a few times, my kids refused to continue to use it. They grabbed the “good toilet paper” from the linen closet and ruined my experiment! The look Pork Chop gave me when he asked me why the toilet paper was so scratchy was priceless. He threw me a look of utter betrayal!

I might have passed my brand loyalty down to my kids. Oops.

Join me this year in my quest for a stress less holiday season! It’s been a stressful fall so I refused to let the most wonderful time of the year consume me with more stress. Who’s with me?