December has just arrived and with it, the vibrancy of the holiday season. As the whole family gathers during Christmas, we shall be preparing to celebrate with great meals and a shiny home interior.

It is time for a final cleaning and decluttering. We need to bring the house into a presentable state as we come closer to the celebrations.

Finish off the gift shopping and wrapping, organise Christmas dinner, send Christmas cards and decorate the Christmas tree. Santa is coming!

Clean the house

It’s time for one last push to brighten up your property with a final house clean. Give every room attention and do not scrimp on your time. You may need a couple of days to finish all rooms, but it will be worth the effort.

Here are some tips to easily organise your cleaning:

• Walk around the house and make a list of cleaning chores. Focus on public areas, rooms used by house guests, kitchen and food storage areas. Make a list of cleaning tasks for every single room or area.

• Perform a detailed dusting, vacuuming and mopping of all floorings for a final touch up. Make sure you don’t forget to polish your silver or brass objects and iron the table linens.

• If you need professional carpet cleaning, window washing or other cleaning service, call as early as you can, to ensure the cleaners will fit you in their busy holiday schedules.

• Delegate routine cleaning duties to family members. Hang the chore list to a prominent place for accountability.

Holiday Prep Checklist

• Plan Christmas meals. Christmas dinner is all about organisation. The more you think about it, the easier it will be. You just have to get a big sheet of paper out and start planning what shopping you can do, what you can pop in the freezer, what you can prepare in advance and what is last minute.

• Finish gift wrapping. Wrap the gifts as soon as you buy them. This way you avoid the gift wrapping time crunch. Tag presents with sticky notes so that you know who gets what.  Add ribbons, bows, and names later.

• Check recording devices. Get your cameras and camcorders ready to capture every moment. Whether you need to buy film, batteries, cassettes or storage media, don’t forget to add these very needed items to the shopping list.

• Write Christmas letters. Christmas is the time when holiday cards and letters fill the postbox. It’s time to write your own family Christmas letter. If you want to stand out from the crowd, there are a few things you can do. First of all, never start a letter with a negative note about how quickly this year has passed. We all can feel it and need no reminder of that. Keep Christmas letters short and reach only for the year’s high points. Don’t operate with big words, swollen sentences and clustered adjectives. Friends want to hear from you, so bring a breath of fresh air and write as you speak, using your own voice.

• Help children write their own letters to Santa. Pretend that you drop them in the mailbox, but actually keep these writings in a secret place. You will treasure them in later years, with all the misspellings and funny drawings.

Are you organised yet for Christmas?

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