‘Tis the season! If the daily countdown until Christmas is making you anxious because there is so much to do, we have some tips and tricks to make your holiday less haggard. Plus, we will show you a few ways to dress up your holiday packaging to really make gift giving feel extra special.
Tip #1:
Get organized! We recommend creating a spreadsheet with all the people that you need to buy gifts for. In the first column, add their name. In the second column, add what you bought or gift ideas that you may have. In the third column, include the price (including shipping). This will really help you next year determine your holiday budget and keep track of all your holiday expenses this year. Include everyone that is on your list including teachers, household contributors (such as a cleaning lady or landscaper), neighbors, Secret Santa, holiday party host, and of course, your friends and family. In the fourth and final column, mark whether the item has been received and keep this up to date. Especially in the world of online ordering, you want to make sure that what you have ordered and been charged for actually makes it to your home! (We are still missing several Black Friday packages...)
To make things even easier, we created a free simple holiday gift tracker for you to print and use below!
Tip #2:
Order your wrapping supplies early. Wrapping supplies not only include your wrapping paper but gift boxes, gift bags, tissue paper, tape, scissors, gift tags, shipping labels, and gift stickers. For bulk wrapping paper, bows, boxes, and tissue, we love Nashville Wraps. They ship lightning fast and are very affordable.
We love four items from More Than Paper to add to your gift wrapping supplies.
- A personalized hanging gift tag. We affix this to packages and then write on the back, or up top, to whom the gift is for.
- A personalized gift sticker with a holiday message from our family.
- A personalized gift sticker with a blank recipient name and “with love, Santa” personalized sentiment. This makes gift giving for the kids quick, easy, and stylish!
- Holiday shipping labels for shipping packages. These holiday shipping labels give an extra special touch to your mailings! We personalize the front address for quick and shipping labels.
Store these items together in one easily accessible place. We suggest wrapping presents as they come in or as you buy them. Don’t wait to wrap all the gifts at once or you will have wrapping fatigue! We set up a station of sorts in our kitchen with all the supplies handy that we can put out and then put away. Turn on some holiday music or a holiday movie and get in the spirit!
Tip #3:
To make your holiday card sending a breeze, the first step is to get your recipients addresses in order. Address management for your contacts can be a full-time job if done only once a year, so do your best to keep up with it all year round. We recently found a great contact management solution called Postable. You can get a customized address link and send it via text message to friends & family, requesting them to input the data like name, address, birthday, anniversary, email & even details about their children. This gives them the job of data entry and all the information gets put into your database. This has been invaluable, and we highly recommend a tool like this!
When it comes time to sending your cards, you can import the data from your Postable account into an Avery label template to make holiday address labels. Be sure to order your cards from More Than Paper! We have a selection of quick turn cards shown below.
Tip #4:
Carefully plan your holiday menu in advance. First, gather your guests input (for this, we really mean the picky children eaters at our table…), think about allergies of your guests, and peruse magazines and Pinterest. Build out your menu including your appetizers, entrée, dessert, cocktails, and mocktails on paper. From there, you can carefully and meticulously make one list. (Pro Tip: outsource the appetizer and dessert to capable guests. We like using a cute holiday notepad for our list making… but that’s just us! Perhaps you even want to print your menu on festive paper like this one.
With these simple organization tips, we hope that your holiday is easier, less stressful, and more enjoyable. What are your holiday tips to make things less stressful and easier? Share them with us here or on our Facebook page!
Wishing you Happy Holidays!
