Preparing Your Home for Christmas Celebrations

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With the colder weather sweeping in and Halloween just around the corner, my mind has been turning to the C word... Christmas! I absolutely love Christmas, it is probably one of my favourite times of year. I love that magic that seems to be in the air around Christmas and it is all about good quality family time. So when Christmas comes around I love to go all out, making the house feel like it's own mini winter wonderland full of decorations, lights and festive magic. 

But there is so much more than decorating and beautiful twinkling tree's when it comes to getting the home ready for Christmas time. So today I thought I would share with you how I like to get our home ready for Christmas. 

A Big Deep Clean 

Having a big deep clean every few months throughout the year really helps to keep on top of everything. Therefore I always try to plan a deep clean around November time ready for all the madness and chaos that comes with Christmas time. We all know how much extra stuff comes into your home over Christmas including the decorations, presents and gifts as well as other items too so freeing up space and ensuring your home is clean will make this feel much more manageable. 

If you have a wood floor this can be a good time to give it a really good clean and polish or if you have carpet, now could be a great time to get out the carpet cleaner and give them a good deep clean. Don't forget to give any rugs a good clean and wipe around the skirting boards too, ensuring you reach every corner before putting any furniture back. 

I also like to get the duster and hoover out and make sure I get rid of any dust, dirt and cobwebs from around the ceiling. If like us you choose to have ceiling decorations around Christmas this can really draw the eye to spaces you previously might not have so it's really important to get into all those un-thought about spaces. 

Repaint Walls and Ceilings 

Before you transform your home with as many lights, baubles and decorations that you can find, start with a clean blank canvas by refreshing the paint on your walls. The majority of the walls in our home are white/cream and so need touching up at least once a year. I find doing this in November time not only gets the home ready for Christmas but means when the decorations come down after Christmas the walls always look clean and fresh too. 

If you plan on wallpapering this may be better left until after your decorations have been taken down as they could cause holes of marks. But if you are planning on painting now is a great time to tackle it. 

Move Around Furniture 

As Christmas comes around many of us will be thinking about decorating, including a beautiful Christmas tree! For many this will mean needing to move around a few pieces of furniture to make everything fit and look good, mostly a large Christmas tree if your family has one.  

If you are anything like me it will take you a few times to get everything right as well as making sure you have plugs where you need them (or extension leads set up) and tweak everything until you are happy. Getting everything moved before you start decorating will give you time to make sure you are happy with where everything is and then you can go to town with the decorating! You never know you may find that moving the furniture round for Christmas actually frees up more space and you may want to keep it this way going forward! 

Declutter 

If you have kids you will already know just how much stuff will enter your home over Christmas! New toys, books, games as well as all the decorations etc will mean our homes can begin to feel a little cluttered. It can be a great idea to have a good declutter throughout your home before you begin to start planning for Christmas celebrations. 

Get the kids involved in sorting out their toys. Broken toys in the bin, unwanted toys in a box for the charity shop and then a pile to keep that can be stored safely to play with and use. This will make way for new toys and you can get rid of any old toys before the chaos of boxes, packaging and new toys come along on Christmas day! 

It can also be a good idea to have a declutter in places like the kitchen too. Clear out the cupboard, throw away any out of date food, defrost the freezers and sort out what you will or won't eat. This will then free up lots of space for you to stock up in advance of all that yummy Christmas food we all love.

 Christmas is such an exciting time and whilst it may look a little different this year due to different restrictions that doesn't mean you can't go all out at home. The biggest thing to remember though is not too stress. Nothing has to be perfect, the most important thing is to be able to enjoy the time together. 

How do you get your family and home ready for Christmas time? Let me know in the comments below. 

xXx


**This is a collaborative feature**