The holiday season throughout fall and winter is often packed full of activities, celebrations, and gatherings. While these are all lovely things, no one can deny that it can get overwhelming to host gatherings, purchase gifts, coordinate outfits, and travel! You can get ahead of the stress by creating a checklist and preparing for holidays ahead of time..
What Holidays are Coming Up Soon?
October 10: Canada Thanksgiving
October 24: Diwali
October 31: Halloween
November 1: First Day of: Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead)
November 24: US Thanksgiving
November 27: First Day of Advent
December 18: First Day of Hanukkah
December 25: Christmas Day
December 26: Kwanzaa
January 1: New Years Day
January 6: Three Kings Day
As you start to prepare for the holiday season, here are some key things to keep in mind:
Book Flights in Advance:
If you plan to visit friends and family that live a little further away, you will want to purchase your tickets well in advance. You definitely want to avoid paying high holiday prices or missing the window to buy tickets due to the busy flying season. Travel services, such as Hopper or Kayak, can help by giving you a confidence marker if it is a good time to buy or you can sign up to get notified when prices are trending down.
Make Holiday Reservations:
Do you want to eat dinner at a coveted restaurant for the holidays? Many restaurants start booking their holiday tables months in advance, so make sure to confirm headcount and start looking up reservations. You can call the restaurants directly or use services like OpenTable, Resy, Yelp, and Explorestock. The time and date you want are not available? Some of the services listed allow you to set up a notifications if something becomes available during your preferred times.
Make a List:
This tip is great, especially if you are shopping for a lot of people! Make a list of all the people you want to shop for, with ideas for what to get them, and write down what gifts you purchase as the months go on.It can be easy to forget what you already purchased, what you are waiting for in terms of shipping, and who you might have missed! You can create a holiday list online using your notepad app on your phone or by saving your list on Google Docs or Microsoft Office. Then you can access your list from anywhere - without losing it. This list might just be your holiday lifeline.
Take a Look at Your Decor:
Do you have boxes stacked in a closet, attic, or garage with all your holiday decorations in them? It’s a good idea to take all the boxes down and get rid of broken or outdated decorations and make a list of what you will need to replace for the upcoming season.
Create a Menu:
Even if you only plan to cook for a small gathering, you should create a menu that lists all the appetizers, meals, and desserts that you plan to make and create an accompanying shopping list. This way no one forgets to bake cookies or purchase the turkey.
Organize Photos Early:
If you plan to create personalized photo books or custom family wall art for the holidays, start organizing the photos that you want to use for your projects. One of our favorite ways to do this is to create an album on your phone and add photos that are high-quality, with great lighting, organized by date. This makes it so easy to upload the album to the SimplePrints app and start creating your project!
Order Early:
Don’t wait until the last minute to order your gifts! You don’t want to have to send sad texts that their packages are missing, delayed, or out of stock. Make sure you order by the shipping deadlines to get your packages in time.
At SimplePrints, we keep an updated list of shipping deadlines for most holidays so that you know when you need to order your gifts to get them on time.
Are you ready to start creating your holiday gifts?
Organize photos in your phone app, then start importing to the SimplePrints app with just the touch of a button. Your loved ones will be over the moon when they open a personalized photo product created by you. You can download the SimplePrints app and start creating today!