Home Holiday Prep: Get Your Home Ready for the Holidays

One evening it’s October 30th and you’re going to sleep thinking about buying candy for trick or treaters and one last thing for a kid’s costume, and the next morning you wake up and it is December 1? Just like that, the holiday season you were hoping for has flown out the window before it even began. You’re suddenly behind on shopping, can’t get the perfect gift in time, didn’t get family pictures taken, no time for mailing Holiday cards, and now there’s no time for any of the family traditions you really want to keep up with.

The answer to breaking the cycle of holidays sucking the life out of you is to start early, strategically. And I mean REALLY early! That's why I've created a 10-Week Holiday Tracker plan for you to follow. If you are reading this blog and it is less than 10 weeks before December 1, all is not lost. I promise. The first few weekly tasks shouldn’t take more than an hour, so doubling up shouldn’t be a problem and still be able to get your home ready for the holidays. 

Home Holiday Prep in 10 Weeks - Get Your Home Ready for the Holidays

Week 1: Dream & Plan

10 Weeks Before December 1st 

This is the time to intentionally think about what you want your holiday season to look like. Do you love to be out going to all the events? Are you the hostess extraordinaire and have multiple events in your home? Would you rather stay home reading Christmas books and drinking hot chocolate by the Christmas tree? 

Think about what your dream December looks like and make a plan to ensure that you get it this year:

• Write down what matters most to you this holiday season. 

  • Traditions, events, decorations, food, etc.

• Decide what you want to keep, cut, or start.

• Create a master holiday calendar for November & December

  • This can be a shared digital calendar or a printed one. I like to print a calendar for the month of December that my whole family can see. Printing it in September and adding to it as things come up helps me to continually see a birds eye view of the month since I usually live week to week with my google calendar.

• Schedule big events that tend to sell out.

  • This year I booked a hotel for a staycation downtown so we can see holiday lights and have it become an experience.

  • Polar express. When my kids were little this was a favorite event and tickets for the good dates would sell out by mid October.

  • Purchase tickets to any event you know you want to attend: A Christmas Carol, Favorite Holiday Concert (tickets to mine just went on sale), the Nutcracker, other Christmas plays, visiting Santa, or any other event that requires tickets and may sell out.

  • Holiday tea: a favorite tradition for my daughter is that the two of us go to a holiday tea on her December birthday. I put an alarm on my phone for when the reservations open up every year and book it for my preferred date and time.

  • For anything that does not yet have tickets on sale or available, put an alarm in your phone or event on your calendar to purchase tickets when they do go on sale. That way you won’t miss out. We love to go to a local production of The Nutcracker and their tickets often don’t go on sale until the beginning of November.

• Schedule any professional services you plan to use this year such as: 

  • tree delivery, outdoor lighting, or family photos. 

Is there anything else you typically schedule this time of year in preparation for the holidays. If you haven’t already done so, make sure that any tasks you don’t want to do are scheduled. 

At Reset Your Nest, we love to help families set up their holiday decor and especially to take it down after the holiday season. We usually organize or refresh the entire storage room while we are there. We love to get clients on the calendar starting in September and October even if we are helping with setup and takedown in November and January.

Week 2: Budget & Gift List

9 Weeks Before December 1st

This might seem premature, but the most time-consuming part of the holiday season can often be finding the perfect gift and managing gift-giving for the many people in our lives. If you begin this process early, it doesn’t have to be stressful or time consuming. Create lists that are easy to access and easy to edit. If you want to go the extra mile, there are many apps out there that can help you track gift buying, budgeting, gift wrapping, and more, but I have always used my notes app and it has worked great.

• Set a realistic holiday budget for gifts, décor, food, travel, activities.

• Create 2 main gift lists: “immediate family” and “everyone else”. 

  • Immediate Family

    • Budget for each person.

    • Listen to wants and needs they mention and put info in an easy-to-access place on your phone (e.g. iPhone notes app).

      • Make a note of which to buy during Black Friday.

    • Brainstorm homemade or experience-based gifts. If there are homemade gifts you want to make, get started early. Those types of gifts should be made with love, not stress at the 11th hour.

    • Try Elfster: each family member creates their own profile and can create multiple wish lists. This is especially handy when creating your personal wish list, which we can all agree is just as important.

      • Save items from Amazon, Etsy, Fanatics, Ulta Beauty, Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble, and Pandora.

  • The “everyone else list” can include teachers, coaches, friends, work colleagues, neighbors, service providers, and hosts.

Week 3: Prep Your Home

8 Weeks Before December 1st

Our homes are where the majority of the holiday magic happens and can often become a place of clutter and frustration, especially around the holidays. If we are bringing in extra decor, extra food, extra stuff from all the gifts being received, our homes can feel unmanageable. Knowing that all of these things are coming into my home is a great motivator to let go of anything and everything in the home that is not serving me.

Edit of your entire house:

1. Declutter your kitchen. Don’t reorganize. When I do this, I am not adding new bins, labels, or creating new systems, I am simply opening up every drawer and cabinet and closet and looking at what’s there. If there’s anything I haven’t used all year and know I won’t be using during the holidays, I let it go.

2. Declutter your living spaces to make room for décor, or make a plan to swap out certain decor pieces for holiday items. I am a sucker for holiday decorating. There’s a fine line between getting all the holiday decor you want and not overcrowding your storage space with too much decor.

3. Guest room/bathroom. If guests will be coming, declutter any areas that guests might be using so their space can feel welcoming.

4. Organize storage areas where decorations will be pulled from or returned to. There is nothing worse than having clutter and obstacles in your way when you want to get to your Christmas tree or decor. But don’t worry about decluttering your holiday decor just yet.

5. Declutter kid spaces to understand things they might need. I am usually helping my kids reset their rooms during the first week of October to swap out seasonal clothing. Use this time to clear space and also understand their needs. My kids know that if they ask for anything (even new underwear or socks) after October 1, they are going to need to wait for Christmas. Doing a complete room reset in October with children accomplishes so many things. I usually walk away from these room resets having swapped out seasonal clothing, having made space for anything my kids might receive during the holidays, and with a better understanding of what kids might need for the holidays and also what they really don’t need.

Schedule Family Photos:

• This last to-do item for week three has nothing to do with what happens in the home, but if it is a priority for you, this is the perfect week to make sure it gets done. If you haven’t scheduled a professional photographer for family pictures and having an updated family photo for Christmas cards is important to you, prioritize making this happen this week. In Utah, this is the perfect week to still capture beautiful fall leaves and grab a tripod or a friend who knows how to take good pictures. Though I love family pictures, I also believe that done is better than perfect and some years, just getting the family picture is more important than not having anything at all.

Week 4: Décor & Traditions

7 Weeks Before December 1st

Now that you’ve decluttered your home, it’s time to dive into your holiday decor and do an audit. This can feel like a big task if you don’t want to take everything out in October. However, to the best of your abilities, think about the decor you have BEFORE you impulsively buy anything new at the store. 

Here are some tips to make it easier to manage your holiday decor:

1. Take pictures. I always take pictures of my holiday decor and like to look back on those pictures. I ask myself if I want to repeat the same look and feel or if I want to mix things up? 

2. Take notes. At the end of each season, in addition to taking pictures, I start a notes list on my phone with information I know I will forget year over year. Do lights need replacing? What batteries should I stock up on? Anything I should be buying in preparation for decorating? Anything I should NOT buy because I got it at 90% off the week after Christmas but I know I’ll forget over the year and they’re not captured in pictures? I started these lists because of too many years of forgetting the things I had purchased the previous year. 

3. Edit what you don’t use. At the end of each season, I also ruthlessly edit any decor I didn’t use that year. My hope is that each new holiday season I am only entering with the items I love the most AND used in the previous year so unused decor doesn’t build up.

If you didn’t do any of those things last season, just do the best you can. The goal is to make purchases intentionally and not get sucked into all the cute holiday decor being put on display in every single store in September and October. Maybe consider decorating a little earlier this year so you can pull everything out and get organized before making purchases.

Other things to consider when auditing your holiday decor:

• Decide your theme/colors if you want a fresh look this year. It’s so easy to make a complete color scheme change with ribbon, bulbs, and a few other accents.

• Stock up on basic hosting supplies (napkins, candles, table settings). 

• Shop for wrapping paper and any wrapping supplies you need this year. Then create a wrapping station that works for you. My favorite wrapping supplies make wrapping not just easier, but beautiful and fun.

The second task for this week is to really dial in the traditions you want to celebrate this year. Remember the intentions you set in our first week and look at what you already have scheduled on your paper calendar. Start to think about the things that really add to the season and what drains you. I love to keep family traditions that add meaning and don’t overwhelm or clutter the holiday season. I’m sure there are plenty of traditions you keep alive because they are important to parents, children, and other loved ones. 

Take a minute to think about what you want YOUR December to look like. Is there something new you want to try that you’ve never made time for? Is there something that maybe you don’t want to continue this year because seasons have changed? Intentionally write down the traditions you want to prioritize and keep them with you for when you write your bucket list with your family in a few weeks. 

This is your year to not just be the facilitator of magic, but to enjoy the magic as well. If there are some traditions that require prep work or shopping, now is the time to get started. 

Some traditions that require some preparation that I feel are worth the time and money for me are:

• Christmas PJs: If Christmas pajamas are a thing in your home, I like to shop early. Order Christmas jammies this week and then they will get a lot more use and wear. I used to give them to my children on December 1, but now give them to my kids the night that we decorate the Christmas tree. It usually ends up being the first week of November which just adds another month of use and magic to our home.

• We love the Elf on a Shelf tradition, but being creative every night can become cumbersome. I love HH Holiday Hack that makes this tradition so fun and so easy. They send an unmarked box to your home with 25 darling and creative ideas to do each night to add to the magic. Use code "nest15" for 15% off.

• 12 days of Christmas: we love selecting a family we are going to serve and take them a cute note and gift that correlates to the 12 days of Christmas. We’ve had years where we are scrambling every night during an already busy season to put something together, but when I do all the prep work ahead of time, it is a really fun and service oriented memory for my kids. 

• I wrap all of my Christmas books and put them under the tree instead of having empty space under the tree. Plus, it’s fun for my kids to open a “present” each night and then read a book each evening leading up to Christmas. This tradition also helps us make sure that we get through reading all of our favorite holiday books.

Week 5: Lets get shopping!

6 Weeks Before December 1st

It’s time to go to the store and order gifts online. Here are some tips that have helped me when I am ordering gifts this early:

• Presents bin. Designate a storage bin in your storage room or other area and put a label on it that is very uninteresting to everyone else in the family, like Mom’s pregnancy clothes. Use that to hide gifts until ready to be wrapped

• Inform the family that from this moment forward, no one is allowed to open any packages. If a package is opened and a present is discovered, it will be returned. 

• Wrap presents as they come in or on a weekly basis. When I wrap presents early, I record which presents I have wrapped and for whom so I don’t forget and don’t overspend on any one person.

• Order custom or personalized items early (stockings, monogrammed gifts, photo books, etc.). If there’s anything that you are giving this year that takes extra time from you, schedule the appropriate amount of time to make sure it can happen. No more staying up till 2am for a week straight in December to get the annual family photo calendar put together and ordered ;).

• Designate a spot for presents to mail out. This includes the list of people I will be mailing things to, my gift list ideas, addresses, and anything else. I keep a separate basket for these gifts so when they arrive, I can keep them corralled together and only go to the post office one time at the do end of November.

Week 6: Food Planning

5 Weeks Before December 1st

Food is such an important part of the holiday season for us. There are a number of treats and meals that I only make around the holidays and my kids don’t let me forget it. I keep a list on my phone of all the recipes I know I will make during the season and also the meals I want to make sure and schedule in. 

Schedule Holiday Meals:

• Write out holiday menus for Thanksgiving and December gatherings.

• Stock up on pantry staples (flour, sugar, spices, canned goods).

• Freeze cookie dough or side dishes ahead of time in silicone containers.

• Corral all holiday recipes in one easy place. I love the app Paprika for all my recipes, but also have handwritten recipes that I take a picture of and save in my Christmas album on my phone so I can have everything handy when shopping and planning.

Week 7: Wrapping, Cards, and Hosting plans

4 Weeks Before December 1st 

• Begin wrapping gifts as they arrive, don’t save it all for December. You have the gifts, you have the wrapping paper, find a podcast, guilty pleasure reality tv show, or hallmark special and stay on top of it.

• Design and order holiday cards. If this is your thing, don’t save it for the last minute. I love getting my cards out early so friends and family can receive it at the beginning of the season instead of the end.

• Update your address list and purchase stamps. With this done, getting the cards ready to send out is a super easy process and there are fewer hurdles to just getting them in the mail.

• Schedule dates and send out invites for any parties/events you are hosting. I always try to send out my invite to my Annual Cookie Exchange at the beginning of November. Something I have learned in recent years is that I like to schedule the events I’m hosting all in one week’s time. My daughter hosts a friend party, we have a birthday in December, I host a party for my Reset Your Nest team, and I host an annual cookie exchange. 

I found that if I schedule all of these events in the same week, it saves so much time, energy, and money. I will do charcuterie boards and appetizers for all of them and can repeat so much of the food and spend the week in hosting mode. Everything comes out for the parties and it feels so efficient and effortless to put on so many events.

Week 8: Entertaining Essentials

3 Weeks Before December 1st

This is the week to really prepare for any entertaining that will be done during the entire holiday season. You’ve already decluttered, now it’s time for cleaning and taking inventory: 

• Make sure that anything you need to purchase for entertaining and any food that’s non-perishable is purchased and ready to go. 

• Purchase beverages and non-perishable snacks for entertaining.

• Prepare your lists of perishable items that will need to be purchased the week of.

• Deep clean guest spaces or schedule a cleaner.

• Inventory serveware, linens, and holiday table settings.

Week 9: Gratitude & Giving

November 17th-23rd

• Write and send holiday cards.

• Choose a service project, donation, or volunteering opportunity. I use our Elf on a Shelf to give our family daily service project ideas. Whatever your family chooses to do this season, use this time to take the stress out of the service. Do you want to leave snacks for delivery men? Put in the grocery order now. Are you going to do the 12 days of Christmas to a family in need? Plan all 12 days, make purchases now and even put delivery times/reminders in calendar so it feels easy and fun.

• Confirm all travel and hosting details.

• Order your holiday bucket list and pick up at FedEx.

Week 10: Deck the Halls

Nov 24th-30th

• Put up decorations, trees, and outdoor lights (mine may or may not go up the first week of November, but you can put this wherever you want in your timeline). Refer to your pictures from last year. Hopefully you will feel the relief of already doing an audit of your decor items and decluttering your home. This should be a fun experience, not a frustrating one. As you are putting them up this year, be intentional about only using items you love, items that work in your current home, and consider letting go of the decor pieces that are sitting in storage even during the holidays.

• Finish gift shopping. If there are any items you were waiting to purchase for Black Friday, refer to your list and place your orders. 

• Wrap gifts as final purchases roll in.

• Mail gifts. Can you imagine having your gifts be the first to go under your loved ones’ trees?

• Fill your family bucket list with fun activities (hot cocoa night, caroling, holiday movies) and hang it up in your home. I like to use magnetic frameless frames for mine.

December 1

My hope for you is that when December 1st arrives, you will feel like everything has been taken completely off your plate. You might need to refer to your already prepared list of perishable items to put in your online shopping order for the week, but besides that everything will be ready to go so you can spend the month enjoying the magic instead of only being the facilitator of it. You’ll be organized, decorated, and ready to enjoy the season because of your preparation. 

With all the heavy lifting done, my hope for you (and me) is that December becomes a month of presence, traditions, and connection. Not chaos. You can still serve, give meaningful gifts, bake, host, and do all the bucket list things, but still have time to sleep and show up as the best version of you. 

This is the LAST year all 4 of my kids will be living at home and it makes my heart want to burst, but it also has given me so much motivation to create a season of rest and not one with me running around trying to get from one big task to the next. Follow along on social media as we prepare for a memorable season together.

Jen is the founder of Reset Your Nest, a Professional Home Organizing Business in Utah (servicing Salt Lake City, Park City, Ogden, Alpine, Highland, Mapleton, and St. George). She loves creating order and systems out of chaos and is known for bringing a beautiful aesthetic as well as easy to maintain function to any space. She shares her tips and tricks on Instagram @reset_your_nest.