5 Tips to Get Your Home Ready for the Holidays
We’re rezoning the home for the holidays and showing you how!
At Graceful Spaces, we believe getting the home ready for the holidays goes beyond trees, wreaths and garlands. Don’t get us wrong - we love to decorate for the holidays! But we also understand that the holiday season can quickly become a source of stress between entertaining out-of-town guests, cooking elaborate dinners, and baking countless treats all while making sure you have gifts for everyone on your list!
To help simplify the holiday season and minimize the “rush,” we’re making a few seasonal changes to our zone strategy that can easily be incorporated in any home!
ZONES ARE AREAS IN THE HOME WHERE SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES HAPPEN
You can read about a few of our favorite zones to incorporate in the home here.
1) Holiday games & activities zone
With the kids out of school, keeping them busy (and keeping their prying eyes away from any gifts hiding behind closed doors!) is essential to staying calm during the holidays! To do this, we like to create a zone filled with puzzles, books and crafting supplies that children can interact with independently.
If you already have a homework zone or art cart, this is easy to achieve with just a few seasonal swaps!
2) Holiday Baking Zone
From cookies to pies and everything in between, baking for the holidays can feel like a marathon! While we can’t reduce the number of steps in a recipe, we can help reduce the number of steps you take in the kitchen to gather all of the necessary ingredients and tools required in that recipe by designating a baking zone in your kitchen.
Consider stocking your baking zone with the following:
Decanted flours, sugars, chocolate chips and other frequently used baking ingredients
Cooking oils, extracts, spices and sprinkles kept on turntables
Cookie cutters and other baking accessories (like KitchenAid attachments) kept in pantry bins
Mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons
3) Holiday Hot cocoa & treats zone
A coffee zone is essential any time of the year, but the holidays are a great opportunity to incorporate some festive touches that the whole family can enjoy by adding hot cocoa, marshmallows and candy canes.
We also like to include a few holiday treats to the zone to make it easy to assemble the perfect holiday movie snack or refuel after a day of sledding!
These mugs from Rifle Paper Co. are almost too pretty to drink out of, but we love the subtle holiday design and cannot wait to take our first sip of hot cocoa out of one. Speaking of hot cocoa, Williams Sonoma has become our one-stop shop for holiday treats that are not only delicious, but can also function as decor!
Pair a Rifle Paper Co mug with Williams Sonoma hot chocolate for an effortless, but beautiful gift for just about anyone on your list!
4) Holiday Stationary ZONE
We don’t know about you, but our mailboxes see the most action during the holidays between mailing and receiving cards and party invitations. To help you stay on top of it all, we like to stock a utility drawer with holiday-themed stamps, gift tags, envelopes, pens and more!
Memory bins are a great way to store holiday cards and other mementos that you want to revisit year after year.
5) Holiday Travel Zone
Traveling during the holidays? Make packing a little easier (and free yourself up to be more present during this special season!) by creating a zone stocked with your everyday toiletries and other travel essentials.
If you’re traveling as a family, consider creating a designated travel zone in a central location where everyone can pull from like we did in the Amarra Sanctuary home tour!
