Excited for the Season? Here’s the Early Christmas Prep you Can Do Now.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but Christmas is coming. Yes that’s right, tick tock. That makes right now a great time to get ready for the arrival of the jolly red man and the lashings of visitors he tends to bring with him. Here are five things you can do right now that will help you Christmas proof your head and home!
- De-clutter
With a bunch of new stuff about to enter your home, it’s a good idea to clear some space for it all. My rule is – if I haven’t used something in the past year, then it’s not worth keeping it around ‘just in case’ I may want to use it one day. So clothes that haven’t been worn, magazines that haven’t been read, platters and appliances that haven’t been used (George Foreman grill anyone?) all get packed up and given to Good Sammy’s or sent off for re-cycling.
I also do a big clean out of the kids’ toy box and give away the things they have grown out of or simply don’t use anymore.
- Clean out the pantry and fridge
I am not sure about you, but we seem to accumulate a large amount of very strange things in our fridge and pantry … things that we’ve maybe used once and will never use again. I won’t even mention the things that are months past their use-by date and growing things that could possibly cure cancer if we could reproduce them.
This is a good time of year to get everything fresh and clean and make some space for eggnog and giant bowls of trifle.
- Give the garden a once over
Now is a good time to cut back overgrown bushes and plants because they will have time to sprout new growth and be at their showy best once the rellies start dropping round. You can also do an audit of chairs, benches and tables to make sure nothing is just short of falling apart after months of neglect. If you’re hosting Christmas outside, consider giving your outdoor area a bit of love (so much dust gathers there) and even a fresh look with a bit of light painting renovation.
If you give your garden and outdoor area a thorough spring clean now, then you will only need to do the most minimal of maintenance in the lead up to Christmas and indeed for the rest of summer.
- Get the Christmas tree, decorations and lights out of storage
Most people like to get their Christmas tree up around the 1st of December. But there is nothing worse than dragging everything out on the day only to find out a mouse has eaten through a string of lights, or that your tree ornaments are looking a little dated and worse for wear.
If you get everything out now you can check it over and ensure that whatever little ‘blanks’ you need to fill. I mean who doesn’t like shopping for Christmas stuff!
- Make some lists
This one is for your head. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand the thought of going anywhere near the shops in the final two weeks before Christmas. Everyone goes a little feral and it makes my Christmas spirit fly straight out the window.
So around this time I make a list of any presents that haven’t been bought yet along with the more expensive Christmas day purchases (like new chairs, alcohol, giant hams and turkeys, back up presents etc). I split these purchases over the coming weeks (which also helps with the household budget).
