Prepping for the Holidays

As the holiday season approaches, Horderly wants to help you prepare your mind and home for family gatherings, overnight guests and all visitors in between! Preparing early will not only reduce stress — but it will make time with friends and family less hectic, and more enjoyable!

Here is Horderly’s checklist to make sure your holiday preparations go according to plan:

Declutter & Deep Clean

The first step to creating a happy home for the holidays is to declutter and deep clean your space! Decluttering is the easiest way to make your home an airy, light and homey space for your family and friends. Decluttering before doing a hearty deep clean will make the process so much easier and faster! Make sure to dig into all the nooks and crannies you’ve been avoiding during the year.

Any Horderly professional organizer can guide you through our “keep, toss, donate” process. We like to encourage our clients to only keep the items you love! If it doesn’t make you happy, it’s probably time to donate. This is the season for giving, after all!

We love using The Container Store’s Laundry & Cleaning Storage Cart system to store cleaning supplies. The best part is that this cart is wheeled and can travel with you around the house as you clean!

Menu Prep & Take Inventory 

Prep, prep, prep! We cannot stress this enough. Regardless of what holiday you’re celebrating, creating a menu early and taking inventory of your kitchen weeks before will save you so much time in the long run!

Set your menu, make a grocery list and shop your kitchen before shopping in the store! Once you know what you have already and what you need to complete the meal, search for coupons and then pay a visit to your local grocery store. Your wallet will thank you!

We love using The Container Store’s Accordion Expanding Receipt & Coupon Organizer to clip and organize our coupons! The best part is, this file system easily fits in a purse, so you can take the entire organizer shopping with you!

At Horderly, the kitchen is the heart of our home. We love to help our clients organize their kitchens for the holidays – ensuring every fork, platter and pitcher has a proper home in an accessible location. In addition to food inventory, take inventory of your kitchen items and figure out what you’d like to keep, what you’d like to toss and what can be donated!

Be sure to visit The Container Store’s Holiday Kitchen Sale to stock up on any items you may need to holiday prep with ease!

Plan Table Settings & Seating Chart 

Whether you’re having dinner for two or twenty, planning the details in advance will make both you and your guests feel more relaxed.

After setting your menu and taking inventory, figure out what plates and bowls you’ll need to serve the meal properly. Then, determine which items you’d like to use to decorate your table — and add place cards at the head of each plate!

We love setting place cards for large gatherings! The extra few minutes you take to determine a seating chart and set place cards will make your guests feel so special. Mix things up and seat guests who don’t get as much quality time together next to one another — so they can squeeze in a hearty conversation with those they only see a few times a year!

We also love, love, love using our Brother P-touch CUBE Plus Label Maker to print custom labels for place cards. You can customize the font, color size to fit the aesthetic of your table.

Take Gift Wrap Inventory

Take inventory and set up a gift wrapping station to tackle those gifts that need to be wrapped in paper, ribbons and bows!

Make a list of what you currently have, and what you’ll need to purchase more of this holiday season to wrap the perfect gift. Once you know what you’ll need, consider an organizational system to store all of your gift-wrapping items. We love The Container Store’s Elfa Mesh Gift Wrap Cart and Customized Gift Wrap Center!

For even more gift-wrapping tips, stay tuned for our upcoming feature on creating the perfect gift wrapping station! 

Plan a Special Gift

Gifting can be one of the most special parts of a holiday. However, even though it is the season of giving, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to give a present wrapped in paper and a bow.

At Horderly, we love gifting experiences to our friends and family! For those who may need organizational help, give them a Horderly gift card and bring the professionals into their home to start the New Year off right! Our mission at Horderly is to change our client’s lives for the better and take the weight of clutter out of their lives. There’s no better gift than that!

Plan Decor

Last but not least, start pulling out your seasonal decor to place around the house. Determine which items will be placed in certain areas, or outside your home. If you are using decor with lights, make sure to plug in anything with bulbs to test them! Do this early so you can order new bulbs or light strands for anything that may have burnt out since last season.

Make sure to keep track of which decor you are and aren’t using this season. Consider donating the items that aren’t getting much use — a Horderly professional organizer can help walk you through our process and declutter the items that you don’t love anymore. Horderly will be featuring more tips on how to organize and store your holiday decor in a few weeks once the celebrations are over!

Today’s Tip from Mrs. Horderly 

“This is the season for giving, so do your best to give your guests memories and experiences they won’t forget.”

XOXO Horderly

P.S. Be sure to follow along with Horderly throughout the holidays for more tips and advice for holiday hosting, gifting, cleanup and more!

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