One of the more difficult things to do as a stay at home mom is to find time to get out without the kids tagging along, especially when they’re younger. It’s bad enough the rest of the year, but when the holiday season comes and you want to get presents for the kids without them catching you at it, things can get pretty difficult. How can you handle all that shopping when you need to watch the kids?

These are just a few of the ways I handle things. It’s not always easy to get time on my own, but something is usually possible eventually.

Shop Online

This one should be obvious these days, but it’s not always easy to keep kids from peeking over your shoulder, nor is it always a replacement for going out and actually seeing the things you want to buy. When you’ve got just a little time and privacy, it’s one of the easiest. Great selection, shipping free from many sites, this stuff can be good.

Amazon is a common favorite because they carry such an amazing range of things. I also have a deep fondness for ThinkGeek. I’d imagine you have your own favorites too.

Shop During School Hours

If the kids go to school and you have a few hours without them, it’s a great time to get your holiday shopping done. It means watching the clock a little, but that’s not usually a major problem.

Have Someone Else Watch the Kids

I love this option. Usually it’s my husband or a grandparent watching the kids to give me time out for holiday shopping. Grandparents are particularly useful if my husband and I want to go out shopping together. It’s fun picking things out with someone else to talk to, after all.

If you don’t have family nearby, see about trading off with friends. Surely you know someone else who has a hard time getting out to shop because of their kids. Make a deal which benefits you both.

Remember Toddlers Don’t Really Understand Everything

I do a lot of my holiday shopping with my toddler in tow, even if it’s for her. I can show her things, even put them into the cart and buy them, and know that by the time I give them to her, she’ll be excited all over again. She also doesn’t yet have the vocabulary to spoil any surprises for her siblings.

Shop Later

One of the presents my kids ask for most often is that I take them shopping after the holidays or a birthday. They love that a big part of their present is time out with me or their father, whoever they pick. A budget is set, the kinds of things I’ll be willing to buy explained, and off we go. Usually there’s ice cream or a movie involved as well. It’s fun and it ensures that whatever is bought is what that child wanted.

I try to make this one on one time, but it can be done with siblings along if desired. Just make it a little extra special.

Not every business picks up as Christmas and other winter holidays approach. Some slow down. What do you do if that’s your business, but you really need the money to keep coming in? This is especially a problem for freelancers, as many clients send out less work as the holidays approach, as they’re busy with the holiday season.

1. Brush up your skills.

Less activity in your business means you have time to work on your skills. Think of something you’d like to do better, and make it happen. This won’t earn money immediately, but could pay off in the long run.

2. Get ready for tax season.

You know it’s going to have to be done some time, what better time to start getting your paperwork in order for when you need to figure out your taxes than when you don’t have customers or clients to care for? Get things organized now, and it will be much easier to figure things out or get them to your accountant later. Remember, if you’re sending in estimated tax payments, there’s one due on January 15. For those of us in the U.S., anyhow.

3. Consider new income streams.

This one may be very important if things dry up badly for you around holidays. Can you come up with something to do during the holidays to bring your income back up?

You may also come up with income streams that relate to what you’re doing already. Are there other services or products you can offer clients and customers? It doesn’t have to be your own product or service, it just has to be relevant to your customers’ needs, and you have to earn something from it, whether it’s a direct payment to you or a commission through an affiliate program.

4. Offer holiday specials.

If business isn’t coming to you the way you’d like it to, encourage it a little more. Make special offers for the holidays so that clients and customers are more motivated to make a purchase.

5. Review your goals.

Many people make goals for the new year. It’s getting close, so why not get a head start? You can have a plan ready before New Year’s Eve rolls around.

6. Take a break.

It’s the holiday season. You may be stressed if you aren’t earning what you’re used to or what you’d like, but are you taking some time to enjoy the holidays yourself? Especially if you have little else going on with your business, why not?

7. Pray for January to come.

When you’ve done everything else you feel you can, and things are still going slow, it’s time to start praying or wishing that January will come. It won’t make it any sooner, but it can be on your mind.

We’re deep into the holiday shopping season and you have a site or shopping page you’d like to promote for the holiday season. Is it too late to get results by Christmas?

That depends on what you do to promote it.

The quickest way to effectively promote your page is to pay for advertising. Use pay per click advertising or buy ads on relevant sites. It can work. You’re getting right out there in front of potential shoppers.

It can also add up fast. You must keep track of your expenses and earning to be sure that you aren’t taking a loss on the whole thing. Getting more sales doesn’t do you any good if it costs you more to make those sales than you earn… unless you know you get good backend sales. But most of the time you’re safest looking at the immediate costs and profits.

You can try free methods such as article marketing as well, but you will usually do better with a more direct approach than using article directory submissions. Contact relevant sites and see if you can get them to publish an informative article on their site. Your byline may generate sales, and can do your SEO efforts good as well.

This far into the season, you must consider things that get directly in front of shoppers. If they help SEO, that’s good too, but that may not work fast enough to build your sales for Christmas.

You can’t waste any more time on thinking about what you’d like to do. You have to get it done. Otherwise, the shopping season will pass, and you’ll still be trying to get things moving.

Consider your list. If you have one, even a small one, make sure to send a few offers out. This is the time of year people are thinking about buying. Give them the excuse.

Don’t do anything that will ruin your chances to do well with that site in the future. Most of us don’t do so well with disposable sites.

Remember that sales continue immediately after Christmas. People are returning things they didn’t like and may be shopping for the things they wanted but didn’t get. Others just can’t resist the great sales.

Speaking of the future, set up a reminder to start your holiday marketing earlier next year. If you want SEO results, August is not too soon. Get things moving so that your sales improve with the holiday season. You’ll do better if these things are not left until December.

The holiday season is a hectic time for most of us. Not only are there all the usual things to deal with in terms of running a home business or otherwise working at home, there are all the extra delights the holidays bring. Extra shopping. More demands for family time, especially with extended family. Lots of events to consider attending. Traditions you need to make the time to follow.

Sometimes that really throws a wrench into your plans to follow a normal work schedule. There’s so much to be done, and you’re usually the one with the flexible schedule expected to handle it.

It gets even more difficult when you’re looking at the things you enjoy doing. You may feel more motivated to do the fun stuff and less motivated to work on the things that bring an income in, at least until you start thinking about the incoming bills.

This isn’t something that people who work outside the home always understand. They can work their usual hours and handle all the holiday stuff, no problem. Why can’t you?

It’s more challenging to deal with the holiday rush when you work at home because you often aren’t working standard business hours. You may work a part of the day, then again at night. You may work weekends. You usually work when it fits into your schedule, not when your employer wants you to. That flexibility means your work hours often take a hit when life gets busy.

How Do You Decide How Much to Work?

It’s helpful to decide how much work you need to do to keep up the income you need to have at this time of year. There’s no one answer to that. If you have a lot of passive income, you may be able to let things go for a while. If you earn based directly on the work you do, you will need to work as usual, especially if your family badly needs the money.

This takes sacrifice if a lot of family events are at times you’d usually be working. That’s the life you chose when you decided to work at home. You may be your own boss, but that often means being a harsh taskmaster. Find a way to get that work done.

Know When to Take Time Off

We all need time off, and the stressful holiday season is no exception.

If you’re feeling tired or burned out, it’s time for a break, even if you have a lot more to get done. You will be more productive after you’ve taken a break. Don’t stare at your computer monitor, getting nothing done just because you’ve told yourself you need to get a certain number of hours of work done today. Staring at the monitor doesn’t count as work, it only counts as wearing yourself out.

Consider Hiring Help

If you just can’t get it all done, this is a great time of year to hire help, whether it’s around the house or for your business.

Hire a housekeeper to get your home clean enough for company if you don’t have the time to do it.

Hire someone to do the writing for your site, some research, or whatever else you need help with. You’re better off with this option if you’ve done it before and either have a regular assistant or know how to find good help. Otherwise it can add to the stress. Teaching someone how to meet your expectations is not always easy.

Don’t Hold Yourself to Unnecessary Deadlines

If you’re running your own business, most of your deadlines are the ones you set. If you’re running behind, you’re the one who knows if the deadline is necessary or just something you set for yourself.

If it’s not necessary to keep to the deadline, don’t! Give yourself a break.

Remember to Enjoy the Season

No matter which holidays you’re celebrating this time of year, remember to enjoy them. Don’t drive yourself crazy thinking about work when you’re supposed to be having fun. The work will still be there when you come back to it.

It’s that time of year again, and the brick and mortar stores may have beaten you to it. Are you starting up your Christmas promotions?

Brick and mortar stores are doing so already in some locations, and more will do so in the near future. It may feel early, but if you aren’t ready for Christmas now with your online business, you should be thinking about what you’re doing to make the most of the biggest shopping season of the year.

You can start by checking to see which of your shopping pages need to be updated. Are they offering current products?

Next think about what you would like to start promoting this year. Get those pages and/or sites up and running.

Don’t feel as though it’s too early. Lots of people start shopping for the holidays early. There’s no need to miss out on sales just because you feel that it’s strange to be thinking that way already.

I don’t mean for you to decorate your sites all in Christmas colors, of course. And please don’t autoplay Christmas music when people come to your site. There’s plenty of that in the malls. All you really need is to have your sites set up to make some good money for you over the holiday season.