There are certain times of the year you must prepare for. This is certainly true in regards to the winter holiday season. If you don’t get started early, you may be left scrambling with only days left and nothing to work with. This also holds true in regards to your home. Below are a few ways you can prep your home for the holidays this year.
Buy Decorations While They Are on Clearance
One of the most important parts of preparing a home for the Christmas season is decorating it. You can find all kinds of decorations in the clearance sections of stores, and they can be bought for a fraction of their original price. However, you shouldn’t wait until after Thanksgiving to shop for Christmas decorations. Traditionally, Christmas decorations go on sale the day after Christmas. Sometimes you can find things on sale in the days or weeks leading up to Christmas, but it’s a safer bet you’ll find something you love if you get started on next year’s decoration shopping the day after you’re done celebrating. Purchase your decorations for the upcoming Christmas season while these items are on sale and then place them into storage until they are needed after Thanksgiving.
Clean Out Your Gutters
Preparing for the winter holidays also, to no one’s surprise, means preparing for winter. One thing you must do to prepare your home for winter every year is to clean out your gutters and remove all the leaves, twigs, dirt, and gunk that has accumulated inside them since their last cleaning. If you don’t, ice dams could form on your roof. That, in turn, could lead to moisture damage inside your home as the snow on your roof melts.
Pump Your Septic Tank
The holidays are usually a time when you have family and friends over to visit. Many may, in fact, spend the night. If your home has a septic tank, you don’t want a nightmare scenario to happen in which it backs up. Your toilets may stop working, and human waste may be forced back into your house. Instead, it’s always a good idea to have a septic tank pumping performed by professionals before the winter season every other year.
Do A General Cleaning
The Gutters and your Septic Tank should rank high on your to-do list, but they shouldn’t be all you worry about getting clean. General cleaning of your entire house is a good idea no matter the season, but especially when preparing for the holidays. All the more so if you’re expecting company. Preparing the common areas in your homes, such as the living room or kitchen, will make these spaces ready and available to be used when celebrating gets underway.
Cleaning your house can also turn into clearing out your house as you make room for incoming gifts, decorations, and family members come Christmas Day. Getting your house clean before Christmas festivities get started will have you presenting a nice, beautiful home.
Prepare For Guests
Preparing your home for visitors can feel like a huge task all on it’s own. It would be a good idea to ready your guest room, or the living room, for your guests that are planning to stay overnight. This may mean providing extra toiletries, stocking up on more food, and preparing your home to handle small children if any are headed your way.
Install a Home Security System
Sadly, break-ins and burglaries do happen during the Holiday season. Criminals know that many families buy expensive Christmas presents and use the opportunity to break in and steal those gifts when they can. If you want your family to be safe during the holidays, certainly invest in a home security system. The mere existence of a home security system may be enough to ward off most would-be criminals.
Overall, don’t wait until it’s too late. Prepare for the holidays early. Part of those preparations should be prepping your house for winter and the company you will have over during the Christmas season. Doing things like pumping your septic tank and cleaning out your gutters may not be things you think of in connection to celebrating the holidays, but doing these things beforehand can save you a lot of trouble later on.
