Cleaning Out the Freezer

First, a quick update on my Final Christmas Tasks list:

• Buy and send our eCard for Christmas
• Wrap the final gifts that are arriving by mail. 
• Plan Christmas meal(s) 
• Make a grocery list
• Place wrapped gifts under tree (right now they are hiding behind some furniture!)
• Buy a couple final stocking stuffers (candy is all I need I believe)
• Drop off recent decluttering at Goodwill
• Get haircut

I signed up for a free 7 day trial with American Greetings. I may still end up paying the $3.99 for a full month, but I have seven days to make sure I like it. I will cancel before the first month is up. I figured out that my pop up blocker needs to be off, if I want to send the card on Facebook. So progress!! 

I wrapped one gift that came in the mail. I believe I have just one more package arrive that will need to be wrapped. After that I'm done...until next year! And those that were already wrapped did get placed under our two Christmas trees. That took only moments to do. In fact, I started with that one first, because it was easy! Always start with the easy. 

When I ran an errand I made sure to get that final candy I needed for the stocking stuffers. It is now hidden away with the others (in our master bedroom closet) until it is time for stuffing! 

I'll give more updates on my final list in the coming days. My goal is to be done by Friday night at the very latest. 

I took a very few minutes on Monday night to clean our the expired food from our fridge and freezer. I saw someone mention this on a blog somewhere and knew I could do it fast! I try to get out the old before I go shopping, but for whatever reason some items just keep getting saved until one day you realize they have been in storage too long. 

I found three Fudge Popsicles from summer. Expired juice, pickles, and dressing. There was kale that had turned and some squash I thought I'd use up from last week, but didn't. 

And because I said I would clean the freezer, I had to pull everything out so I could get the crumbs out of the freezer drawers. And in the back of the bottom one, some smoothie mix left by the owners. It was also expired, luckily just in October of this year. 

Once the drawers were cleaned (with just soap and water), I dried everything off, put the drawers back in along with the food. It looks so much better now!! And the best part, I think it only took about twenty minutes which I did as part of our evening kitchen clean up. 

How often do you check for expired foods in your refrigerator or freezer? How often do you clean out the drawers and shelves? Are you checking things off you Christmas list?