How do you prep for the holidays? Do you organize yourself and make lists to keep on track or do you go with the flow and what happens, happens? I’m a little bit of both but truly a sucker for trying to stay as organized as I can amidst the holiday chaos.
Here’s How to Prep Yourself & Your Home For the Holidays
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1. Start Early
It’s never too early to begin prepping for the holidays – ever heard of Christmas in July?! In my opinion, the earlier the better. To keep yourself sane through November-December, start your shopping in November. Christmas shopping has to be one of the biggest stressors during the holiday season. You and 1000 other people are all frantically looking for the last minute gifts on December 24th. Don’t kill yourself by being one of those people. Helpful tip: Take advantage during the Summer when Amazon Prime Day takes place. You can get great items for awesome prices to save you money and time come December!
2. Set Realistic Plans
Christmas = family. If you’re lucky to have a family to celebrate with, it often means you’re at more than one house during the holidays. It can get crazy, chaotic, and seriously stressful. Who wants to be burnt out instead of enjoying the magic of Christmas?
Set realistic plans for you and your family that will actually work. If you have your family and your in-laws to visit, try and plan a day for each instead of cramming it all into one day.
3. Deep Clean in November
Everyone likes a clean home, especially if you’re hosting and having family and friends over. Leading up to the holidays, you’re buying gifts, wrapping said gifts, baking, decorating- literally doing it all and who has time to clean on top of all the extra stuff? If you start a deep clean of your home in mid-November, by the time Christmas comes you’ll have more “tidying” to do rather than cleaning those nooks and crannies.
4. Make Time for Yourself
Gearing up for one of the busiest times of the year can be stressful. Let’s face it, as much as we all love Christmas, it’s damn near impossible to keep up with it all in some moments. On a nice winter’s day, call your local spa and see if you can get yourself a massage. Or a facial. Or a mani/pedi. You get the drift. The point is to make time for YOU. You can’t keep going if you’re running on empty and don’t have much to give.
5. Put It All In Your Planner
If you’re anything like me, than you most likely have some sort of planner on the go at any given time during the year. Put some time aside to start putting together lists of things you want to do, or things that are a must do when December rolls around. The last thing you want is to be bombarded with Christmas parties that you forget to stay in one weekend and have an epic classic Christmas movie marathon (which you can view a list here if you need ideas). Putting your wants and ideas into a planner helps keep you on track of tackling everything you want to do during that short December window.
6. Don’t Be Afraid to Say No
December weekends book up fast! Holiday parties can start as early as mid-November because everyone is trying to get theirs in the books. It can be easy to say yes to attending all the events and going to all the dinner parties, but that only leads to burnout eventually. Why burn yourself out – seriously? Say no to the events that you’re able to and don’t feel guilty about it. Who knows, maybe next year you can prioritize that specific one and attend rather than another. Burning yourself out early in the holiday game will make you miserable when it should be a happy and joyous time. Say no and move on for both your mental and physical health!
And if you’re home for the holidays and need some ways to feel festive, check out my post “Home For Christmas – How to Feel Festive” from my first Blogmas.
How do you prep yourself for the holidays? Any tips to share?
Come find me on socials and lets chat about how you get yourself ready for the holidays!
