The holidays are stressful ... but they don't have to be! Use these five tips to make your holiday season stress-free!
Gift Wrap Station
No matter what you celebrate — be it Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Festivus — you're probably going to be wrapping gifts. It's a tradition at the end of the year to pick out the perfect presents for family and friends. That means you probably have wrapping paper, ribbons, tape, and more all strewn over your basement.
Make your house less stressful by creating a gift wrap station. You could go all out and get a cupboard with all of your gift wrapping needs, or you could use an old laundry basket for a more simple solution:
To start, get a paper towel roll holder. If you don't have one lying around that you can snag for the month to organize, they are fairly cheap. Place your ribbon on the middle spoke to easily see all of your ribbon, keep it in one place, and easily use it.
Gift wrap tends to unravel easily — stop this from happening by cutting with old paper towel or toilet paper tubes in half vertically and wrapping them around the gift wrap.
Then, place all of your gift wrap in an unused laundry basket to keep it organized and so you can see all of the options when wrapping.
If you're looking for a gift that doesn't necessarily need to be wrapped, take a look at getting your family members who own a home a home warranty! Protect their systems and appliances starting at less than $39 a month.
Make Breakfast the Night Before
If you celebrate Christmas and have small children, you probably know how hectic Christmas morning is; seeing what Santa brought, looking at stockings, unwrapping family presents, and more.
Why not have breakfast ready to eat right when you wake up by making it the night before? Using a crockpot, you can make an easy breakfast casserole. It's something you can eat while you open presents and, if it spills, it's easy to clean up.
If this breakfast casserole isn't something you're interested in eating, there are literally hundreds of overnight crockpot recipes you could make instead.
Open Gifts With Can Opener
Many gifts are packaged in a plastic clamshell. When you're trying to unwrap your gifts this year, instead of trying to use a knife or kitchen shears, cut the sides open with a can opener.
Here's a simple how to:
Storage Tips for Easy Clean Up
Once the holidays are over, cleaning up and organizing decorations can be a pain. These tips can help you organize yourself this year — and help you have an easier time breaking out the decorations next year.
- Wrap up strands of lights with hangers, cardboard boxes, or leftover gift wrap tubes.
- Stack paper cups to organize ornaments and make decorating easier next year.
- Use egg cartons to organize smaller ornaments. The egg cartons are easy to stack in storage boxes.
Get a Home Warranty
One of the most stressful things you could face this holiday season is your furnace, oven, or other home system or appliance breaking down. Keep warm, keep cooking, and de-stress by protecting your home with a home warranty.
With a home warranty, your house's common systems and appliances, such as your electrical, plumbing, heating, and cooling systems and your oven, dishwasher, garbage disposal, washer, dryer, and fridge are all protected. If they fail from normal wear and tear, you can pay $60-$100 — depending on your plan — to have them repaired or replaced.
Isn't that reassuring? If something fails this holiday season, your home warranty would cover it for just a small service call fee. Money is normally tight this time of year, so instead of paying hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars on repairing or replacing your furnace, oven, or other system or appliance, you can breathe easy knowing you'd only have to pay a service call fee.
Interested in protecting your home? Compare our plans and prices on our Landmark home warranties.
Haven't gotten a gift yet? If the people on your list are homeowners, take a look at our practical gifts for homeowners.
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