How to Prepare Your Home for the Holidays: 12 Organizing Tips of Christmas
- Reduce the number of collections or knick-knacks you have displayed. This will make room for fresh flowers, holiday décor, and platters of food to entertain family and friends. The less that’s displayed, the less cluttered your home will look for the holidays.
- As you bring out décor for specific holidays, pack your regular every day knick-knacks and décor into the holiday box. When you put holiday decor away, you can put back the everyday décor. This makes for an easy swap.
- Plan ahead. Decide on menus, reservations, or guest list before the holiday so you can focus on enjoying it. Last-minute scrambling on the weekend or day before, leaves anyone exhausted and stressed.
- Stick to classic recipes and favorite past times. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. If your family likes the Turkey Trot or Christmas tree lighting in the local neighborhood don’t search for a new, bigger, better event. If grandma’s potato casserole recipe is a hit, pass it on to a guest coming so you can delegate something off your menu list. Guests love it when you tell them exactly what to bring. Then they don’t have to stress about what to contribute. Repeating traditions keeps things simple and easy to navigate.
- Sort and purge in toys in the toy room, basement and bedrooms because the next few months will bring toys and plenty of gifts. Old toys are taking up precious space the new Christmas presents deserve. It’s also a great way to teach kids to let go of the old to make room for the new.
- When you come across games or toys while decluttering that they do love, create a holiday shopping list to enhance their current set. For example, if they love the Barbie house, consider adding on the Barbie car or if they love a themed Lego set, buy another set inside that theme.
- Try cutting out one tradition or one thing that’s on your to-do list that hangs over your head and makes you feel guilty. Life is too short to live based on guilt. What is the worst that will happen if you decide not to do it? Think of the time and energy you’ll save when you strike it from your list.
- Set up a system for holiday greeting cards by creating a database of addresses. Use last year’s envelopes or your current address list. It doesn’t help if all the addresses are in your phone. You’ll want to create an Excel spreadsheet. Year after year you can update it, edit it and merge it with any card company that will send the cards for you or print labels from it. Whether you create your own, buy prefabbed cards, or send a photo card, having that Excel spreadsheet will save you HOURS!
- Resist the temptation to stuff clutter or paper in a bag or laundry basket and hide it right before guests arrive. That just creates more work after the holidays.
- Didn’t pull out all your Christmas decorations this year? It’s okay to scale back and keep it simple. Chances are you won’t bring them out next year so just donate them and save the hassle. Donate old Christmas decorations to local charities before Christmas, not afterward. Charities would rather have your stuff now to sell or give out before Christmas.
- Take inventory of how many strands of lights you have and test them before you buy more. (That’s a good job for the kids.) Keep outdoor lights and indoor lights separate. This makes setting them up and figuring out what goes where a lot easier.
- Shop in your gift section at home. So many families have gift areas or gift shelves. Now’s the time to go through the items before you finish up your shopping. Use up the gifts instead of buying new ones.
