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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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  • I am half organised. I have cleaned my house and given the garden a bit of some love. Still need to wrap presents which I will start doing in the evenings once my daughter is in bed. Slowly putting together my Christmas food list and will do a delivery a bit closer tot eh day.

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  • Yep, I’m all organised. Pressies done, hubby is working, kids are doing their own thing. Just me and the dog for the big day so no real dramas to donany of this

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  • All great tips,l leave my wrapping to the last minute which is so time consuming!

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  • I like the idea of wrapping gifts immediately, I tend to gift wrap last minute.

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  • Really great list. Dreading it already haha

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  • This is so true. Now and then , you clear your wardrobe and cupboards by throwing things out if they are junk or donating good clean items to Vinnies or Salvos especially clothes and shoes. That way you have less things to think about before Xmas and can get very confusing if you have items piled up everywhere. My kids use up clothes and shoes fast as they are always growing and clean up once it a while too . After new year , it will be cleaning again .

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  • thanks for these useful tips.

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  • Wrapping Christmas presents as you get them seems like a great idea but as ours tend to be hidden all over the house it never seems to happen that way.

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  • great tips….I hate not being organisd! Thankyou or sharing

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  • With Christmas just around the corner,Mathis is a timely article to come across and read. Noe to put it into practice

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  • It’s only September, I haven’t even started organising Christmas :0 Aaaaahhhhh, where does the time go?

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  • How interesting! Christmas is so great!

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  • Great ideas thanks

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  • Some great tips! I try to be completely organised a few weeks before hand. It is going to be here again before we know it!

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  • time is fast.December in 2014 has just passed for new year.why not do some momeries,keep live,so just do canvas prints online

    Reply

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