7 tips to save you time this Christmas

Time is always at a premium over the Christmas holidays. In a recent Family Life post I looked a ways to slow down and work smarter over the holidays. Today I am offering up seven more tips for saving time this Christmas season.

Save On Post Office Trips

To save yourself the hassle of going back and forth to the post office to pick up gifts you have ordered online or from catalogues, have them delivered to your office instead of your home address.

Clean Pre-Tree

Take the time to clean your house before you bring in the tree and all the decorations. Naturally, you will need to do a quick vacuum once you have the tree in place but it’s much easier to clean a house when you don’t have to move all those holiday decorations around.

Prioritize Your Cleaning

Sit on the couch and give the living room the once over. Tidy, vacuum and dust everything that’s visible and leave deep-cleaning for a cold day in January. Ditto for all other main rooms your home.

Short On Help?

Hire the cost-effective services of local teenagers to help with your holiday preparations. Most teens would love to help bake, wrap or even clean your house for a little extra Christmas cash. Or, if you can afford it, give yourself the gift of having a professional cleaning company come in.

Fill Up

Going out of town on Christmas Day? Avoid frustration and save on having to drive all over town to find an open service station by filling up on gas and windshield-washer fluid a day or two before Christmas. You might also want to pick up some gas line anti-freeze while you’re at – you never know, when the temperature will drop.

File Important Seasonal Papers

Store concert tickets, invitations, and receipts for purchases, instruction books, warranty cards and the like, in file folders. Keep these files close at hand and easily identifiable by writing in red or green and coloring the tab with a coordinating marker. A great way to store these files is in a desktop file holder. Better still, cut down a cereal box and cover with wallpaper, wrapping paper or plain brown paper. Try to find something that matches your decor.

Eliminate Post-Christmas Frustration

Keep all receipts, gift boxes and packing cartons in case you need to make returns.

Please stay tuned to my Family Life posts for more tips on how to make the most of your Christmas holidays.