Clever Organizing Ideas to Prepare Your Home for The Holidays

The holidays are right around the corner and that means holiday baking and decorating, creating homemade treats, gift wrapping—and unwrapping!—and gatherings of family and friends. Before you get started and the rush is upon you, here are some home organization tips to help make your holidays sparkle and shine!

From your kitchen to your living room, you will want to banish the clutter and organize your home to make space for celebrating. Clearing the way for decorations, having a designated place to wrap gifts and write holiday cards, and having organized kitchen pantry necessities will make your holidays less stressful and more enjoyable!

Ready to welcome in the most wonderful time of the year? Read on to learn more!

Before the holidays is a good time to take stock of what you have. As you head up to the attic, or out to the garage to gather your holiday decorations, take inventory of your home. Organizing guru Marie Kondo suggests you clear the visual “noise” to create a serene platform for building new festive memories.

Walk through each room in your home and take a look at what is there. Are there items taking up space that you can live without this season? Pay particular attention to the rooms where you and your family will be spending the most time during the holidays.

More will be coming in, so now is the time to toss any broken or damaged items and donate the clean, gently used ones to thrift stores and shelters.

Now is also a good time to freshen up any rooms with a brisk pre-holiday cleaning before guests begin arriving. Start with a good dusting and open the windows if you can.

Change:

Take stock of your living room.

Minimize clutter by removing any out-of-season decorations that will detract from festive displays and pack them away until January. Better Homes & Gardens suggests using small decorative boxes and bins to corral the clutter in busy rooms like your living room.

These are particularly helpful during the holiday season for storing:

Bring in touches of cheer in the form of garlands, lights, and candles and set the scene for a joyful season.

If you are planning on doing any baking this season, now is a good time to take stock of what’s in your cupboards and organize your kitchen pantry, says Houzz. Pull out your recipes, those tried and true Grandmother’s favorite cookies and any new ones you might want to roll out this season and make an ingredients list.

At the same time, get rid of items you are not going to use soon or have multiples of, especially as their expiration dates near.

Designate space in your home for gift-wrapping and correspondence as celebrity organizers The Home Edit suggested in the Washington Post.  Having everything in one place will make gift-wrapping and holiday card writing a joy instead of a chore. The space doesn’t have to be large—you can have a box in your closet or under your bed. Fill it with:

A cloth bin or decorative box can hold incoming and soon-to-be outgoing holiday cards, along with a few markers to address envelopes. Toss in:

If you keep an address book, drop that in there, or get a small notebook and make a holiday address book. Update it each year when you write out your holiday cards. In this digital age, the holiday card might be the one time of year you sit down and put pen to paper.

Hang incoming cards on colorful ribbon & display them on a wall, in the doorway, or the branches of this winter tree arrangement by style maven Martha Stewart.

If you have any holiday-themed tableware, now is the time to pull it out and check pieces for damage, wash tablecloths and napkins, dust off any vintage centerpieces or invest in new ones.

"Pick a theme" and bring in the green, says HGTV.com, with simple touches like:

Check your holiday cookware: roasting pans, pie dishes, cheesecake pans, etc... Silicone baking cups are wonderful for muffins, egg cups, canapes and more.  

Take this opportunity to give your bathroom a holiday makeover. If you are going to have guests this holiday season, this is one room they are likely going to visit. Start with giving your bathroom a once-over. Small spaces are quick to clean up and easy to freshen with holiday decor.

Bring in a holiday theme or bright new color. Then give the room a deep clean to make it sparkle and shine, and finish it with some holiday-scented hand soap, air freshener and candles.  

Seasonal scents need not stop at the bathroom. Fill your home with the scents of the holidays with cleaning products like:

Make your entire home smell like a winter wonderland and soak up the holiday spirit. It’s hard to frown, even while doing the dishes when your home smells like eggnog!