Read "A Christmas Secret," a children's story by Susan Molthop

Start pattern and idea shopping

Begin work on gifts

Don't forget garden gifts. If you start now, you can have beautifully trained herb topiaries ready for gifts by Christmas.

You could also bottle home-grown herbs and make home-grown potpourri for presents. Dried flower arrangements also make good gifts, so order those seed catalogs and think Christmas!

Not quite up to making decorations from scratch? Maybe you like the personal touch but aren't too crazy about anything that looks completely homemade? Try combining store-bought with handcrafted. Shiny glass balls look beautiful with crocheted lace covers.

Testimonial:

We have a large, beautiful Father Christmas top ornament that came with a cheesy cardboard barber pole staff. One summer, while hiking in Utah, we found a piece of driftwood that was just the right size and shape and all ready rubbed smooth. We brought it home, where my husband cleaned it up and put polyurethane on it. Now it looks like an authentic walking stick, and gives our top ornament a very classy look.