18 ways to prepare for Christmas early

Last Updated on December 15, 2024

Christmas may feel like ages away, but it comes around really fast, and one of the best things you can do is prepare for Christmas early, so you can enjoy the festive season, instead of feeling overwhelmed and stressed by it.

If you’d like to have an organised Christmas, then this is the post for you!

Here you’ll find 18 ways to prepare for Christmas early, so you can have a stress free Christmas, avoid mum burnout during the holidays, and actually get to enjoy Christmas with the rest of your family.

Some of the activities in this post won’t apply to your family’s Christmas, so don’t feel pressured to do them all. Work on the ones that will make your Christmas easier.

In terms of what to start planning first, I’ve listed each Christmas item in this post in the order that I would tackle them.

For example, I’ve listed breaking down your to do list first, so you know everything that you need to do for Christmas, and so you can start to schedule each to do list item into your calendar so they get done.

I’ve listed travel plans and booking Santa visits at the top of this post as well, because these are things that you need to do early, October if possible, because these two things book out fast.

Let’s dive in and discuss the ways you can prepare for Christmas early, so you can get everything done in time, and enjoy the lead up to the big day.

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Break down your to do list

The first thing I recommend doing to prepare for Christmas early is to write a Christmas to do list, which should include everything you need to do, want to do, and remember to do, for your family’s Christmas.

It can even include anything from this post that you’d like to do for your Christmas.

Once you’ve written your Christmas to do list, break larger to do list items into smaller, more manageable tasks.

For example, if buying presents is on your Christmas to do list, break this task down into smaller tasks by listing who you need to buy presents for, ideas of presents for each person, a budget per person, and what date you need to buy each gift by.

Once your list is broken down, schedule every item into your calendar on the date you need to do it on, so it all gets done.

Top tip – keep this list for future Christmases, and add to it whenever you think of something that needs doing, so you don’t have to continually rewrite your list.

Write out a Christmas budget

Having an organised Christmas is great, but having a Christmas that you haven’t overspent on is even better.

To avoid overspending during Christmas, write out a Christmas budget by looking at your Christmas to do list, and listing down all the items on it that involve spending money.

Once done, allocate a budget to each item, which can be made easier by working out how much disposable income you’ll have between Christmas and the time you write your budget, and allocating amounts depending upon how important each item is.

For example, if gifts are important to you, you may decide to allocate a larger amount of the disposable income you’ll have before Christmas on gifts, and allocate a smaller amount on food.

You may even decide to remove something from your Christmas to do list, like Santa visits, so you can spend more on gifts.

Decide who’s hosting Christmas Day

Find out as early as possible if you’ll be hosting at any time over Christmas, because if so, there will be extra things you need to prepare for, and spend money on, such as:

• Extra cutlery, crockery, serving ware, tables and chairs
• Guest bedding and towels
• Beds for guests to sleep on
• Christmas table setting items

Make travel plans

If you’re visiting family over Christmas and you need to fly to your destination, book your tickets and airport parking as soon as you’re made aware that you’ll be visiting them.

If you need to take gifts with you, consider sending the gifts so they arrive before you do, which means you don’t have to worry about the gifts impacting your luggage allowance.

Book Santa visits

Santa visit slots become available as early as October, so make sure you check the websites of your local restaurants, shopping centres, garden centres, and even your local Facebook page regularly from October, so you can book the slots you want as soon as they become available.

Start filling in your calendar

One of my favourite ways to be prepared for Christmas is to fill my paper planner and Google Calendar, or Christmas Planner, with Christmas related dates as soon as I know them, which include things like:

• School Christmas events
• School Christmas holiday dates
• Christmas parties
• Family commitments
• Festive plays
• Christmas food order dates
• Christmas light viewings
• Christmas markets
• Christmas activities
• When you’ll decorate your house

Filling in your calendar as soon as you know dates for anything Christmas related means you won’t double book, you can see how much time you have to commit to things, and you won’t forget anything important.

Refresh your Christmas decor

Before Christmas spend some time looking at the condition of your Christmas tree, Christmas tree decorations, and home and table décor, to make sure they’re in useable condition.

Doing this early means you’ll have time to replace items, buy anything that’s missing, or have the time to find toddler friendly Christmas decorations if your baby has become a toddler since the last time you decorated.

Stock up on wrapping supplies and cards

Another thing you can do for an organised Christmas, is to stock up on items including:

• Wrapping paper
• Ribbons
• Gift tags
• Christmas cards
• Sticky tape
• Christmas crackers

If you want to be super organised, consider buying extras of these items for next Christmas.

Top tip – keep an address list of the people you send Christmas cards to, and contact them prior to sending them to make sure you have the correct address.

Gift shopping and sending gifts

One of the benefits of knowing who you need to buy for, and the types of gifts they may like, is that you can take advantage of the sales that happen as early as October.

Doing your gift shopping during sale periods not only saves money, but means that gifts will be delivered before Christmas.

If you don’t want to overspend on gifts for your kids, a good gift buying guide is to buy them:

• Something to wear
• Something to read
• Something they want
• Something they need

Another thing to consider when buying gifts is to buy some emergency gifts like sweets, stationery, or gift vouchers, so you have something to give to someone who has unexpectedly given you a gift, and for kid’s teachers and colleagues.

If you need to send any of the gifts you’ve purchased, the best time is early to mid-November, so they get to their destination on time.

Get wrapping

There’s two ways you can approach gift wrapping, the first is to wrap gifts as soon as you buy them, which means that you won’t have a mountain of gifts to wrap at once, and which also reduces the chance that the recipient of the gift will see what you’ve bought them.

Or, if you enjoy wrapping gifts, you can wrap them all at once, which you could do while listening to a podcast, or while enjoying some Christmas snacks.

Purchase stocking stuffers

Stocking stuffers are a really nice family Christmas tradition that you may like to start if you haven’t already.

A great way to remember to buy stocking stuffers is to buy them when you’re buying gifts, or dedicate a small amount of time to purchase them all at once.

Advent calendar shopping

Advent calendars become available as early as October, and can sell out fast, so as soon as you see them in stores, grab them and hide them until they’re needed.

Chocolate advent calendars are perfect for younger children, but there are also a wide variety of non-chocolate advent calendars to suit all ages, including arts and craft advent calendars, tea advent calendars, Lego advent calendars, beauty advent calendars and so much more.

You may also decide to make your own advent calendar using a fill your own advent calendar, and placing advent calendar fillers inside it.

Start a reading tradition

Reading some Christmas themed books in the lead up to Christmas is a great way to foster your kids love of reading, as well as get into the Christmas spirit.

If this sounds like one of the ways you’d like to prepare for Christmas early, here are some lovely Christmas books you may like to read with your kids:

• Dear Santa, A Lift-the-Flap Christmas book
• The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas
• The Jolly Christmas Postman
• The Polar Express
• The Snowman

Plan your Christmas meals

One of the more stressful parts of Christmas for many of us, as well as the most time consuming, is planning and cooking Christmas meals.

One of the best ways to tackle this integral part of Christmas is to first plan what you’d like to cook, including any Christmas baked goods you want to make.

You can get some ideas on what to cook from:

• Recreating past Christmas meals
• Using recipes from magazines
• Looking at online recipe sites like BBC Food
• Going through Christmas cookbooks

Once you know what you’ll be cooking over Christmas, write down the ingredients you need, and work out a timeline of when each meal needs to start being prepared and cooked, so everything is ready at the same time.

If you’d like to pre make some of the meals, see what can be cooked and frozen so all you have to do is defrost it on the day you need it. Food such as gravy, stuffing, and vegetables are perfect for this.

Another way to save time is to look at the ingredient list of everything you plan to make, and buy any dry ingredients and non-perishable items early, then store them in a Christmas food prep cupboard until they’re needed. Beans, dried fruit, canned fish, nuts, seeds, grains, canned vegetables and fruit are great foods for this.

Being as prepared as possible when it comes to Christmas meals means that you don’t need to cook everything on the same day, which saves heaps of time, and reduces a lot of stress.

Book your Christmas food delivery slot early

If you want to get the ingredients you need for your Christmas meals delivered, or you need to order special items, check to see when your preferred retailer’s Christmas delivery slots are, and make sure you book a slot as soon as it becomes available.

If the slots are available before you’ve worked out what food you need, just put a few basics in your basket, checkout, then add the food you need before the delivery time.

Declutter your home

Another one of my favourite ways to prepare for Christmas early is to have a good Christmas declutter and tidy up of my home, to make way for all the things that Christmas may bring.

Some areas of your home that you may like to declutter before Christmas include:

Toys

If you know toys will be entering your home over Christmas and you only have time to declutter one area of your home before Christmas, make it a toy declutter.

To do this, go through your kid’s toys and donate or sell anything they no longer use that are in good condition, and still work, and throw out anything that’s broken.

Kid’s clothing

One way to declutter kid’s clothes is to donate or sell anything that no longer fits, but is in good condition, and throw out anything that’s damaged beyond repair.

Kitchen and food

Having kitchen counter, cupboard, and fridge and freezer space over Christmas is essential.

Some ways that you can declutter your kitchen in time for Christmas include:

• Moving appliances you don’t need off counters, and putting them in cupboards
• Donating utensils, crockery, pots, pans, and kitchenware that you no longer use, and buying or borrowing what you need
• Doing a fridge and freezer declutter, and a food cupboard declutter, so you have space for the Christmas food you need to store
• Doing a fridge deep clean by removing items that have expired, and organising leftovers and anything else that remains

Entry way

You can declutter your entry way by clearing away packages, moving coats, shoes, and storing school bags to a temporary location, and placing baskets on the floor so guests can place their items into them.

Linens and toiletries

If you’ll be having guests over Christmas, decluttering your linens and toiletries is something you may need to do.

To do this, throw out any linen that’s damaged, clean the linen and towels your guests will be using, and purchase additional ones if you don’t have enough.

For toiletries, throw out any that are expired, or that you no longer use, so you have space for your guests to place their toiletries when they stay over.

Order your Christmas tree

If you decide to have a real Christmas tree, make sure you order one early so you get what you want in time.

Create a Christmas playlist

One of the last things you can do for an organised Christmas is to make a Christmas playlist, which is a music playlist that you play during Christmas.

You can also do the same for Christmas movies, which means making a list of movies you’d like to watch as a family, or after the kids are in bed.

How to prepare for Christmas early – a recap

There are many things you can do to prepare for Christmas early, that will reduce the stress that comes with this busy time of year.

Some of these things include:

• Writing a Christmas to do list and breaking list items into smaller, more manageable tasks, making sure to schedule each item into your calendar
• Developing a Christmas budget to avoid overspending
• Making sure you have kitchenware, bedding, and anything else you need for guests
• Making travel plans and booking Santa visits as soon as slots become available
• Filling in your calendar with Christmas dates so you don’t double book, or over commit yourself
• Going through Christmas décor, buying missing items, and replacing broken items
• Stocking up on wrapping supplies and cards
• Buying and sending gifts early
• Buying stocking stuffers and advent calendars early
• Reading Christmas books
• Planning Christmas meals, preparing what you can in advance, and booking delivery slots as soon as they’re available
• Decluttering your home
• Ordering your Christmas tree
• Creating playlists

Christmas can be overwhelming, but with some planning and organisation you can enjoy the festive season, instead of feeling stressed and overwhelmed by it.

What’s your favourite thing to organise for Christmas?

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