A graphic of Santa's hands writing Last Minute Christmas Preparations
Episode 12 – Last Minute Christmas Preparation

Almost ready for Christmas? Is there still some last minute Christmas preparation to be done? It's only a few days to the big day and we are hoping you're feeling organised and in control. If you still need some pointers, listen in on our last minute tips for Christmas preparation.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The Declutter Hub Podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen and Lesley Spellman. 

Ingrid  0:27  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 12 of the Declutter Hub Podcast.

Lesley  0:31  
I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley,

Ingrid  0:33  
if you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, we're talking about the last minute Christmas preparation, a couple of weeks until to go until Christmas. And Lesley and I are ready to chat about it today with you. We have our min spice here and our mulled wine. Well, not really, we have coffee, and we want to share with you all the things that need your attention until the big day. So Christmas countdown, it's nearly time

Lesley  1:01  
you asked me at mulled wine, though, you know, I'm not sure quite how our podcast will be up to a little more. We'll see. We'll see. Anyway, so now I'm excited. You

Ingrid  1:11  
know, I know it's nearly there. It's kind of always such a massive day in the year and like we talked about on the last podcast, we'd love to preparation of it as well. And we're in the middle of that. I mean, I'm doing the Christmas shows and all the Christmas productions in school. And it's it's such a lovely time if you're busy, but really, really, really lovely. So yeah, and

Lesley  1:31  
I think the most important thing is that we do find time to do the nice things and not just run around like a crazy lunatic for the two weeks. I know before Christmas, doing all the preparations and don't give ourselves time to enjoy it. And that's maybe what this podcast is all about is just scheduling time and thinking about what you've got to do and when and making sure it all fits into place nicely.

Ingrid  1:52  
Yeah, it's true. We've got a whole list of things for you to think about and all the things that need doing but definitely don't forget to enjoy these these these lovely time of year and, and enjoy. You know, seeing the lights into trees now the little lights twinkling everywhere and going to a Christmas show, perhaps and you know, seeing all the decorated houses when you drive through the streets. That's I think what it's all about,

Lesley  2:16  
isn't it absolutely is I mean, I was in as I was coming down to meet yours in London walking through from the station last night and walking past it all a beautifully decorated trees outside the shops. And it was like, Oh, this is so lovely. And I mean, it really does give you that special, you know, kind of Christmassy mood. Yeah. So anyway, so that's that. Yep. But then I've got to go back home to Manchester, where it's probably going to be raining. Anyway, right. Okay, so let's talk about Christmas.

Ingrid  2:44  
Yes. Yeah, I've got quite a to do list still. And, uh, no, how about you, but I'm not I'm not done yet. And that's okay. You know, I'm fine about that. There are things that need to you know, that needs to be done between now and Christmas, but nothing, oh, not everything has to be done in the last minutes. And not everything has to be done today or tomorrow so we can spread it out a little bit. So what's on your list of things to do, Lesley? What's what's what's on your thing?

Lesley  3:09  
Well, I think this weekend is definitely going to be about decorating and maybe a little bit, it's probably a little bit late, actually. But the decorations are going to go up. And that actually is a mammoth job, isn't it in itself, you know, getting the boxes from where they are bringing them up deciding what you want to put up. And then put you know, and there's a huge cleanup afterwards isn't there because every time you put a Christmas decoration up a piece of glitter or a little bobble or something, smash it so you've got to there's a bit so you've got to factor in the cleanup as well as they're putting the Christmas decorations up. Yeah, I think one of the things that's really important is if we're talking about decluttering is looking at those decorations as you put them up. And if you've made a decision this year that you don't want to put a decoration up for whatever reason, then make sure this side of Christmas that they go to the charity shop so that somebody else can buy them and use them because the last thing that people want is for you to make those decluttering decisions in January because they're no use to the charity shop in January they need to go in there now so yeah, definitely do some decluttering because I think we're so used to just keeping things in our boxes and all you know maybe it'll come in but actually things go out of fashion we our tastes change in exactly the same way as it does with everything else. Yeah, so Christmas decorations absolutely can be decluttered and if they can be useful to someone else, charity shop them.

Ingrid  4:28  
Yeah, I think that's a really point. Well Megan I actually did this with the client last week. So we went through all our Christmas decorations and we even tested out you know some of the strings with all the lights on them we tested them I plugged them in and we were like looking at okay, do we need anything replacing before before we put the Christmas tree up and some things that you bought last year so I'm not too happy about it anymore. I actually was wrong purchase I'm gonna let that go this shot of Christmas so it can be sold. So yeah, point well made.

Lesley  4:57  
Yeah. Okay, so decorating, so to speak. Up, Elsa could probably take all day. Yeah, it's quite nice to get your family involved in that.

Ingrid  5:04  
Yes, yeah, absolutely. So I have a bit of a plan I was going on so, so I bought a tree. And that I must tell you listeners, that is my Christmas present to myself, I love a real tree. I've got this massive six or seven foot northmen furred that I love and I pick out with the children. And and then my husband is in charge of putting it in the standard putting it up, he then puts the lights in, then the kids and I decorate all the bubbles and I, I have some really lovely Christmas decorations that had been my grandmother's and probably from the 1940s. So they're 7080 years old. And I'm really proud of them and very, very delicate. So I'm in charge of those and then the kids can be put, can put the other ones on.

Lesley  5:49  
It's an aesthetic, isn't it really, I mean a lot of our Christmas decorations we lived. We lived in America about 15 years ago for a couple of years. And they really do have beautiful, beautiful Christmas decorations over there and Christmas sharps and things like that, who had bought quite a lot of things. And when the kids were much smaller with names on and different things and places that we went. So when we lived in America for that time, every single place that we went, we bought a Christmas decoration there. So it's a really lovely time to go back and remember where we went. And you know, you do that every year. So I absolutely love that job. And the kids do as well. Yeah, you know, my kids are crazy on tradition. So, you know, the suggestion that I go and do a kind of, you know, design retreat is like, No, we are not doing that we are having the same Christmas tree that we've had for the last 20 years. Okay. I know, I

Ingrid  6:33  
know, I fled a little stable that I've put out. And it's just because it used to be my parents house. And I just love it. And the kids love putting the little figurines like the Mary and Joseph and all the sheep and they're like, fight over who's put it put little fingers in and it's lovely. Yeah, yeah,

Lesley  6:52  
I think we're getting waylaid with decluttering I know. I know.

Ingrid  6:57  
I know. decluttering decluttering and organising listeners, this is what it's all about. You know? It's great. Yeah, we love decorating. And I agree with you. It takes it does take nearly like, maybe even a Saturday to kind of get it all down, get the area ready. And then you know, that takes half a day. And then another good half day on the Sunday probably to do just do the decorating and tidy all the boxes and clean up and get the glitter off the floor. So that's this is not an hour job unless you've got a tiny little tree. Yeah, exactly that. Okay. Right. So what else do we need to think about before the big day?

Lesley  7:39  
Well, I think we need to think about wrapping that way. So I think it's fair to say, for Christmas, most people have got different schedules, you know, you've got those people who start in September, you've got people who like to gradually do all the way through the three months, and you've got people who are last minute and and it's up to everybody individually, to manage it in their own way. But you know, wrapping gifts for me is something that I do try and do gradually, as I get things, but I have to remind myself to keep a list. So what I do is every time I grab something, I write it on the list. I've got three kids, because it's got to be equitable, you know, at Christmas morning, I can see you know, looking around who's got more than one. So you know, I write down exactly right, this is what I've got for them, because otherwise you can lose track. This is what I've got for them. This is how much it cost to make sure that you know more or less because because sometimes you just wrap things and don't make a note of what you've done. You forget. Yeah. And all of a sudden on Christmas morning, it does seem inequitable, somehow. And that's not that that's shouldn't be a big deal. But it makes me feel better. If it is that way. So yeah, so I will rap as I go, really. Because again, you know, rapping can be another huge mammoth task, particularly if you've got a lot of kids or a lot of presents that you buy or your family. You know, and it depends very much how I mean, I'm not a great rapper. I've got to be honest. I'm a little bit of like, pull it on. sellotape it on sticker tag on you know, I'm not one of these beautiful. I wish I was yeah, I'm just not I know, sadly. That'd be for another day. Yeah, so wrapping wrapping gifts is something because then you've got to put them out. If you've got little kids, you've got to hide them somewhere. Find space in your cupboards to put them away you know, things like that. So again, another big job. Yeah.

Ingrid  9:19  
Yeah. I mean, you do want to you don't want to really don't want to do that on Christmas Eve, you know, you really want to, especially if you have a lot to wrap, then you know you need to schedule maybe an evening when they when everybody's you know have gone off to bed. And if you want to do it a bit secretive, nobody you know, the kids, your kids are older now. But mine I still want to kind of do it when they're in, you know, asleep and not. I would never

Lesley  9:41  
know kids in front of me. You know, I would never have kids. That'd be nice as well. wrap presents in front of the kids absolutely will do when they're not there. You know? So again, what we're talking about a lot here is time and scheduling time and thinking about you know, like we talked about the putting the decoration so we've got to think about the cleaning Nope, as well, with wrapping, you got to think about an appropriate time when everyone's going to be out, you can do that. Or you've got to sort of split it up or you've got to lock a door behind you, or whatever that may be. Yeah, but these things take planning. Yeah. Yeah,

Ingrid  10:13  
absolutely. And I also think that you mentioned kind of last minute shopping, which I agree with you, you know, some people plan very well in advance and start back in December or in September already. But if you're going to do any last minute shopping, don't get carried away in this whole frantic last minute, I've only got an hour left. And I'm just going to buy random things. And I kind of see what happens, make sure you don't get carried away with your shopping if you're if you're doing it quite last minute, because you can really overdo it, you absolutely

Lesley  10:45  
can. Because you get away get caught up in the moment, you know, all of these, all of these shops are there to try and entice us into buying things last minute, the checkout and so on. And so one thing that you'll hear me talking a lot about is a lot of this term is precision shopping. And so I like to shop to a list. And so I like to really think about whether it's Christmas shopping or any other shopping, clothes, shopping, blah, blah, blah. I really like to plan what I'm going to go and not really try and deviate from that list because that's when you can get sort of waylaid and over by Yeah. And that's not what what this is all about. Really? We're trying to avoid that.

Ingrid  11:18  
Yeah, yeah. Good point. What else do we need to talk about?

Lesley  11:23  
I think we need to talk about the food and planning sort of food and drink preparation, really, because that's this last couple of weeks before Christmas is when we're certainly when I start to think about that. And so you need to, and it's all about buy. Certainly buying drink and buying food this special offers, you know, so a lot of the kind of Christmas drink and things like that there's loads of special offers on 25% of you buy six bottles. And so really try and think about that and plan when you're going to sort of save some money as well. Yeah. Food wise, you know, plan at this time, who's going to bring what so now's the time to say right. Okay, so you're coming to my house for Christmas dinner? Can you bring the cheese board? Can you make a soup? Can you blah, blah, whatever that might be?

Ingrid  12:07  
And also, I think what I just what just came into my head, I think a lot of people have dietary requirements these days. So, you know, be a good host and double check with your guests. If there are any people who are gluten free or vegetarians or can't have certain things or conduct knots or need to be really careful about dairy or anything like that, I think is really important that you now check with your guests. So if you're going to go somewhere for Christmas Day, that you double check if what you're bringing is actually suitable because you know, some people are really allergic reactions, you only have to be really careful. So I think that's also kind of a last minute thing connected to food. It's a suddenly realised,

Lesley  12:47  
yeah, I know, it's, it comes into play more and more. I mean, yeah, two of my kids are vegetarian now. So we're gonna have a couple of vegetarians, but I mean, you know, I've already asked them, I said, What do you want, instead of Turkey? And by saying they just they'll just have the veg, sir. Okay, that's fine. They're happy with that, because they still want that sort of traditional Christmas dinner. Yeah. So much. And I will not rest, you know, maybe in like new. So that's fine. But you know, actually also for Christmas dinner this year? Again, it's about overbuy. And so last year, I think you feel compelled to buy I mean, I have like 16, I think 16 or 17 people on Christmas Day. And so I like to give people choices in desserts. And so last year, I think I went to Marks and Spencers and bought three of those fancy desserts. And they just sit there because we've already had you know, nibbles before, and then we've had sue them for the Christmas dinner everyone's completely for. And so no one ate them. And they just go to waste. And so I think I'm going to be really radical this year and really pare down on that dessert, you know, might be a cheese board that people can nibble at later. But that excess, you know, I know we all go to access on eat excessively and drink excessively on Christmas Day. But maybe we need to save a little bit of money and service or something. So that's what I'm gonna do. Yeah. So if my family are listening, don't expect any kind of putting on Christmas Day because I'm being mean this year.

Ingrid  14:08  
All right, cool. So no putting.

Lesley  14:14  
Yeah, I'm sure at the last minute I'll be like, Yeah, but that's just me today. So.

Ingrid  14:21  
Right. Okay, cool. I'm setting the table for Christmas dinner. Yeah,

Lesley  14:29  
I think this this that a talking

Ingrid  14:31  
about a job in itself as well. Especially. I mean, you've got 16 people, you know, yeah. So that's not something you want to do on Christmas morning, really? So when do you normally set your table?

Lesley  14:41  
Well, I'm, I'm sort of a big over the years since my kids were little I very much like to really enjoy the day. And so our prepare for this is all about this pre planning. So, you know, there's no point in us saying, Oh, you got to get me gifts and you've got to do this. Got it. It's more what we're trying to get across today is it's more about Thinking about the time you've got available over the next couple of weeks, because you know, we've got all the things in our diaries haven't weighed. Yeah, we've got, you know, Christmas dues, we've got things for the kids and so on. Yeah.

Ingrid  15:11  
You know, and work of cleaning, cleaning house and doing laundry. And

Lesley  15:18  
so there's a lot of pulls on our time at this time of year as we've really got to sort of think carefully about when we're going to do things. So for me, I will do that Christmas table, because of course, my table is not for 16 people. I also have to gather tables from around the house. And so for me, it's it desks from the kid's room, you know, and then you got to think about tablecloths. And you know, what dawned on me this year was a very much a forgotten, I think I probably changed my colour scheme last year. And I'm like, What did I do last year? Because you buy things you use it for one day and you put it away? Yeah. So I'm kind of like that. So I need to go now. Otherwise, I'll end up buying something new, which is not very good idea in the decluttering world. So I think it's familiarising yourself again with your linens with your you know, making sure your tablecloths are clean and ironed because they get ironed and put away and and they've got a bit of creasing on them. Yeah, so it's things like that. Yeah. But yeah, that kind of table setting for me happens on Christmas Eve morning. And then as soon as four o'clock or something comes on Christmas Eve, then that's my time to enjoy myself. And then I don't really do that much until I have to start cooking Christmas dinner the following day. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's really important that you're not doing everything last minute, you know, you don't want to be on Christmas Eve, you want to be spending the time with the kids or with your family or going out or whatever it is that you do. You don't want to be spending all your time frantically wrapping gifts or dinner or something. Yeah,

Ingrid  16:42  
yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think it's right. I mean, we normally set the table. Christmas Eve for the Christmas Day breakfast. I mean, I'm from Holland and we do it a little bit different. So we don't do the Christmas dinner at I think normally like two to two o'clock or something. On Christmas Day. We don't really do it. We do it a bit different, which is fine. But so we always try and set the table for Christmas Day breakfast the evening before so you don't have to when you wake up in the morning, it's all kind of nice. And we've got nice, nice Christmas napkins and yeah, everything and little candles and all the lovely breads that we've bought for Christmas Day breakfast and yeah, and then we go and visit my dad for Christmas. So

Lesley  17:21  
I think you know, it's always lovely to hear different people. You say people do Christmas dinner at two o'clock? I'm not sure about I think it's different in every house. Really? You know, we probably won't do Christmas dinner till about six. Okay, because we go around to my father in law's in the morning. And yeah, we spend a bit of family time there. Yeah, I think it very much depends on your own Christmas traditions. And I always love how people do it differently. Whether it's Christmas pyjamas, or, you know, all different things that people do. And everyone's got their own traditions that they like to stick to. Yeah, and you know, there's

Ingrid  17:51  
putting out I think milk and cookies for the reindeer and I have to stockings or they go to church or Yeah, it's so lovely. I love talking to people and hearing what they're doing for Christmas as well. Yeah.

Lesley  18:03  
You know, talking about talking about food and drink. One thing that's really important in terms of your schedule is if you order a turkey or some kind of Christmas meat is you know, when you go to the butchers, it's kind of like an hour's queue, isn't it on Christmas Eve or the day before to pick it up? So that's got to be scheduled into your time as well, hasn't it? Yeah, this is about if you buy one from a supermarket but if you get it from a sort of local butchers is queued out the door 30 or 40 deep and you get a time slot and very rarely so yeah, you got to plumb that into your day as well. Yeah,

Ingrid  18:37  
yeah. True. Um, have we got everything?

Lesley  18:41  
You know, we've not talked about we've not talked about Christmas flowers. Do you know in the last podcast, you were like, Why does Christmas flowers? convinced you to get Christmas? Well, of

Ingrid  18:51  
course because I travel to Holland. I can't bring Christmas flowers. And pancetta has to bring flowers to Holland. No, no, no. You definitely all the flowers come from Holland. So you don't want to bring flowers to Holland. But I do love a nicely decorated table. You know, I do like to see a little bit of a Christmas piece on the table. And of course you've got this array. pancetta open potshots. Yeah. I can't even pronounce that. But I call it the pancetta like this Christmas. It's in our

Lesley  19:25  
is it? I think it might be I would say poinsettia. I don't but I don't know whether that's right enough

Ingrid  19:31  
listeners in the show notes. We will actually put the exact name of this lovely read. I don't

Lesley  19:37  
know how to spell it. I just don't know how to say. You're gonna call it a pancetta, pancetta, whatever, but we all know what we mean. So you know, it's lovely to have that nice sort of flash of red isn't. So that needs to be be thought about as well. Yeah, I think it's really you know, we were talking at the beginning about having lovely times and enjoying That's sort of special times. Yeah, don't make delivering Christmas presents to family and friends become a chore do not mean yeah, it's got to be something that you can invest a little bit time because that's what it's all about, isn't it? You know, it's about give it you know, the end of the day giving gifts is quite special, isn't it? And so make sure you allocate plenty of time to deliver those presents and enjoy the time with family. Yeah,

Ingrid  20:23  
I know, you don't want to have to rush in between visiting three other people you know, you're better off looking at your your plan over Christmas and say, I'm going to visit that person and actually make time to come in and maybe sit down and, you know, share the presence and have a chat and have a little bit of a catch up. Because that's what it's all about. In the end. Christmas isn't it's definitely spending time with your family, your friends and what you want to do.

Lesley  20:47  
So yeah, that's it. We're all ready. So we've just got to do all of those things. I know. The last couple

Ingrid  20:54  
I have done a few of those. Not everything yet. So thank you for the reminder, Lesley.

Lesley  21:00  
Okay, so now we will now we can have our mulled wine, can we

Ingrid  21:03  
Yes, we can have mulled wine now. So we want to wish all our listeners a very, very merry Christmas and a very happy new year a lovely holiday season. And that's it for this episode listeners. And we hope you've all enjoyed listening, and you are inspired to take action. And we hope you've learned a lot today as well. And that all our tips and our last minute preparation will be helpful for you and you can implement them in your own home. Thank you for taking the time to listen today. And if you'd like to get more tips and advice, please follow us on social media. And if you don't want to miss the next episode, subscribe to the declutter hub podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Merry Christmas.

Outro  21:50  
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