Final Holiday tips and Strategies for Christmas 2026

I hope you had wonderful holidays and are in full recovery from your efforts. The best time to evaluate how it all went is immediately afterwards. Rethink your own holiday tips now for next Christmas.

I did a post-holiday review last year but sometimes didn’t take my own advice. Still, here’s what I learned this year–these are my top three holiday tips.

Holiday Tip #1: Don’t Sweat the Timing

I no longer stress about WHEN we can do what we want to do. For example, we didn’t get to do our annual gingerbread house party until last week.

I did learn from last year, that the whole family needs to participate. Last year, everyone was busy so I just made houses with the grandkids. It was not as much fun as when the whole family is involved. It’s worth the wait to get everyone on board.

I just took down our Christmas tree and packed up our ornaments yesterday. I had to keep the tree up until we could take our annual family Christmas pictures, which didn’t happen until Sunday night.

The kids get dressed up in their Christmas outfits and we take family photos in various combinations: mom, dad, and the kids, grandpa and grandma with the kids, the whole family in one shot…and so forth.

By taking family photos every year at Christmastime, we have a pictorial record of our family, from year to year. One day, I’ll make a video to rekindle memories and show the passage of time.

Holiday Tip #2 How to Store the Decorations

We have hundreds of ornaments for our tree, so I’ve gotten smarter about how to store them most efficiently.

I avoid ornaments boxes with gridded separations except for very special, fragile ones. Instead, I wrap each ornament in tissue paper and arrange them in boxes–about half a dozen to a box. I put cloth ornaments in between to maximize space and cushion fragile ornaments within the box and between boxes. This saves space and it’s ample protection if you aren’t jostling them as you put the boxes away.

Along with cloth ornaments, I also put hardier wooden ornaments and metal ornaments like brass musical instruments, in spaces between boxes.

Another way I save space in storing Christmas things is by tossing all the jewel cases for Christmas CDs and DVDs and storing them in a CD/DVD wallet.

Even more space-saving is to discards the CDs entirely and stream your holiday music from a digital streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music. You can use a bluetooth receiver for music streaming (my son gave me a Soundsync A3352 for Christmas) that allows your phone’s audio to play on installed speakers.

Holiday Tip #3: If your Plan is Shot, Let it Go

This year, Miss T and I baked Christmas cookies but we didn’t decorate as many as we have done in the past. I think the decorations were more complicated and it took more time.

So, we didn’t have the usual oversupply to give neighbors and to the ER staff of a hospital close to our house.

Despite your best efforts, if you didn’t get around to doing something on your Christmas list, let it go. I wanted to have an informal desserts and mulled cider party for the neighbors post Christmas and before the New Year because our summer party was such a success. It was a wonderful way to bring the neighborhood together.

I could have done it, but it was going to take my remaining free time. So I chose to pass.

While I was able to send out Christmas cards this year, in many past years it’s been one project too many. I lost my Christmas card address labels document when I changed to a new computer; I finally reconstructed the list this year. Next year will be easier.

Planning for this Year

There are 11 months until the holidays come around again. So, there’s plenty of time to do some holiday preparations in advance. Here are some holiday tips for planning ahead.

All year round:

• Look for small gifts for Christmas crackers or Advent calendars
• Search for ideas for holiday table settings and menus. For example, the snowmen centerpiece can be made well in advance. (Dismantle heads and arms for easier storage.) Keep a running digital or paper file of ideas.

September/October:

• Make Christmas crackers
• Gather cookie recipes

Early November (after Halloween and before Thanksgiving):

• Start baking cookies, breads, and desserts for freezing–I’m thinking with the grandkids’ busy schedules, it makes the most sense to have cut out and pre-baked cookies for them to decorate.
• And, if I want to give Christmas cookies to the neighbors or to have a post-holiday party, I should start in early November to bake and freeze.

Next Week: New Craft Ideas

Once I’ve finally put Christmas behind, as I have this week, I like to decorate the house with fresh flowers, to mentally turn the page. Where I had snow globes and nutcrackers, I have vases of tulips and stargazer lilies.

Next week, we’ll start on new craft ideas for the grandkids.

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