Things You Can Do to Prepare for Christmas Now

Things You Can Do to Prepare for Christmas Now

It’s less than two weeks until Christmas! Are you feeling excited or stressed? If you’re a parent, it’s probably a bit of both. The holidays come with a lot of extra work, especially if you’re hosting friends and family over Christmas too. Here are a few things that you can do now to prepare for Christmas to make it a little bit less stressful and a lot more enjoyable!

• Clear the Fridge, Freezer and Food Cupboards

Before you head out and do a big food shop for Christmas next week, do your best to eat what you have in this week to make space for all the extra food. Check your fridge, freezer and cupboards and get creative coming up with meal ideas to use up the things you have laying around. Doing this will save you money and create lots of valuable space which will help you a lot when you’re trying to fit all the food after doing your big Christmas food shop.

• Wrap the Presents

I often imagine sitting down on Christmas Eve with a glass of Baileys and Love Actually on the TV, wrapping the presents for the kids. It’s a nice fantasy but one kid is always up and I end up feeling stressed. This year, I have wrapped everything already, labelled the gifts for the children and made a list so that I can see what I’ve bought for each child to make sure it’s fair to avoid any drama… Wrapping early will take away lots of stress and if you run out of something or realise you need to buy another gift, you still have time to do so.

• Prep for Guests

If you are hosting guests that will be staying over, you can start prepping for that already. Make sure you have what you need for their beds, clean bedding and suitable towels – if you have a dedicated guest bed you can make the bed already too. Find out if you have enough chairs for everyone who will be joining you at the table and get started on some of the cleaning jobs so that you can just do a quicker clean the day before Christmas before your guests arrive.

• Plan the Menu

You don’t need to do the food shop until next week unless you want to, but it is a very good idea to plan the menu for the Christmas Day dinner and the following few days so that you know what your family will be eating. As you write down the different meals, also write a shopping list at the same time so that you know exactly what you need to buy when you do your food shop.

• Do a Pre-Christmas Declutter

Decluttering is always a good idea but especially before Christmas if you know there will be a bunch of new items entering your home that you will need to find a space for. Get everyone in the household involved to help decide which items you can donate, recycle or discard that you no longer use or love to make room for any new additions.

I hope these tips have helped you if you are looking to prepare for Christmas so that you can focus more on enjoying yourself and your family over the holidays!