UK Christmas Planner & Budget Spreadsheet

Christmas is lots of small jobs with a few fixed dates. This planner spreads them out from early November, keeps every gift, card and booking in one place, and helps you stick to a budget you've chosen.

You get a 27-page fillable PDF planner written for the UK. It comes with a Christmas budget spreadsheet for Google Sheets or Excel that adds up your gift spending, person by person. Type into the planner on screen, or print it and write by hand.

What you get

• The planner: a 27-page fillable A4 PDF
• A Start Here guide (PDF) with a link to make your own copy of the Christmas budget in Google Sheets
• The same budget as an Excel file (.xlsx) for Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice

What's in the planner (27 A4 pages in colour-coded sections)

Start

• Before you start, and a linked contents page
• Christmas at a glance: key dates (school breaks up, nativity, work party, food delivery) and where you'll be each day from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day
• Christmas budget: budget against spending in 13 categories, plus a plan for putting money aside from September

Countdown

• A week-by-week plan from November to Christmas
• 4 countdown pages (early November, late November, early December and the week before), each with tick boxes, who's doing it and a by-date, plus space for your own tasks

Gifts

• Gift list and budget by person over 2 pages: gift ideas, budget, spent, and bought, wrapped and given ticks
• Gift tracker: what you bought, where from, the order number, whether it has arrived and the returns date
• Little gifts (teachers, neighbours, Secret Santa), stocking fillers and a wrapping checklist
• Christmas card list
• Posting reminders: write in Royal Mail's last posting dates once you've checked them, and track your parcels

Hosting

• Events and diary: nativities, parties, carol services, and what to bring or wear
• Decorations and things to do this Christmas
• Hosting and guest planner: arrivals, who's staying, dietary needs and allergies, and who's bringing what

Food

• Christmas dinner planner: the menu with vegetarian or other options, who's making what, orders and a kit check
• Christmas dinner timings: write your serving time and work back from it, step by step
• Food plan from Christmas Eve to New Year, and a shopping list

After Christmas

• Boxing Day and New Year plans
• January review: what worked, returns and thank-you notes
• Notes for next year, and a notes page

The Christmas budget spreadsheet

• Gift Budget: up to 50 people, each with a group, gift ideas, budget, spent and what's left, and a status dropdown (ideas, bought, wrapped, given, posted)
• Gift Tracker: log each purchase and pick who it's for. It's added to that person's total automatically
• Other Spending: food, cards and postage, decorations, days out, travel and more, each with a budget and actual spend
• Dashboard: total budget, spent, left and the percentage used, with colourful charts by person and by category
• Works in Google Sheets (make a copy from the link in the Start Here guide), Microsoft Excel 2010 or later, and LibreOffice

What you'll download

• Start-Here_Christmas-Budget-Google-Sheet_LifeAdminDeskStudio.pdf (PDF guide, 3 pages, with the link to make your own Google Sheets copy)
• UK-Christmas-Budget_LifeAdminDeskStudio.xlsx (Excel .xlsx spreadsheet)
• UK-Christmas-Planner-Budget_LifeAdminDeskStudio.pdf (PDF, 27 pages)

How it works

• Digital download. Nothing physical is posted.
• Straight after you pay, you'll be taken to your download page, and you'll also get an email with your download link.
• Type into the planner's fields and tick boxes using a PDF app that supports forms, such as the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, then save. Or print it on A4 at home and write by hand.
• Some browser and phone PDF viewers don't save form entries. If that happens, use Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Undated, so you can use it for any Christmas. Start whenever you're ready, even if it's December already.
• The images show made-up example entries. You get a blank planner and a blank spreadsheet.
• A4 size. It will print on US Letter if you choose "fit to page", but it's written for the UK.

Written for the UK

UK terms and UK spelling throughout, from the nativity and the school holidays to Boxing Day. Posting dates change every year, so none are printed. The planner reminds you to check Royal Mail's last posting dates at royalmail.com and gives you space to write them in.

Please note

The dinner timings page is a planning sheet. Use your recipe and the instructions on the pack for cooking times, and the Food Standards Agency's advice at food.gov.uk for cooking safely. Ask your guests about allergies, and check labels. The spreadsheet is a budgeting tool for your own records and isn't financial advice.

How this was made

I designed this planner and spreadsheet and chose their contents. I used AI tools to help draft some of the wording and to help build the PDF layout and the spreadsheet. Every page was checked, and the fillable fields and spreadsheet formulas were tested, before release. There are no AI-generated photos or illustrations.

Digital download and cancellations

This is digital content, available to download straight after purchase. At checkout, you'll be asked to agree that the download can start immediately and to acknowledge that you then lose your 14-day right to cancel under the UK Consumer Contracts Regulations. If a file is faulty or won't open, email lifeadmindesk@gmail.com and I'll put it right.

Personal use

For personal use by you and your household. Please don't resell or share the files or the copy link.

From LifeAdminDeskStudio: practical, UK-specific organisers for the paperwork side of life.