Getting your home ready for Christmas

With less than five weeks to Christmas, it’s time to get the house in order. But where do you start and how, on a damp November day, do you get yourself into the pre-festive spirit?

If you declutter before Christmas, it will bring a renewed energy into the home and it just might be the best gift you and your family give each other, says Carolynn Doyle of family life consultancy Family Flow

She suggests starting in the kitchen. Before you begin baking or cooking, clear the presses of everything that is out of date and check you have all the spices and dry goods you will need as well as muslin and/or turkey bags.

Most people hate doing this so Doyle suggests “putting on some festive music, serving drinks and asking each member of the household to tackle one press”.

A taxi man explained why Peter Casey would be a great president

---

Paul Allen obituary: Microsoft co-founder who was a billionaire philanthropist and sports team owner

---

Mary Midgley obituary: Moral philosopher and critic of Dawkins and academic imperialism

---

Get rid of chipped plates, mugs and try to match cutlery. Dump all the cleaning products you don’t use and go through the shopping-bag stash and get rid of all but 10 of them.

Ready the house for the influx of new gifts by clearing out old toys is more sage advice. “The kids need to be part of this process so let them choose what needs to go. With anything they are unsure of, let them have another week to play with it before they make their decision.”

Clear wardrobes of clothes that haven’t been worn in more than two years, get rid of unworn jewellery and make-up that is past its sell-by date. While you’re there, put together some party outfits that will help save getting-ready time when December comes.

Next, write a checklist of what needs to be done, starting with dressing the table. “Is the tablecloth up to scratch?”; “what sort of a centrepiece will we have?” “do we have enough candles?” are all questions that need answering. Again, get the kids involved by giving each a task, maybe one could decorate the table, another write the place names and so on, says Doyle.

Natural greenery

When it comes to decorating, interior designer Suzie McAdam likes to use natural greenery – she forages winter evergreens like holly, ivy and mistletoe and fleshes them out with florist finds like silver dollar and baby-blue eucalyptus, ferns and conifer branches. These, she drapes atop the mantle, along the table as a low centrepiece, adding rich, ruby red berries for colour. She also sets the greenery into glass vases on low side tables. It is a really inexpensive way of changing the atmosphere in your home, she explains.

Fairy lights are another favourite to help create an ambiance that says Christmas in a very modern way, McAdam says. She drapes them over mirrors or sets them into glass bowls or vases and lays them on bookshelves and on a hall table.

In her kitchen, she lays strings of twinkly lights inside glass cabinets. “It’s about creating little vignettes within the home.”

Visual merchandiser Jane Gillaway believes dressing the tree is a job you have to dedicate time to. She designs the annual look for Dublin shop Christmasland and insists it cannot be rushed and can take a couple of nights to complete. “You start with the lights, plugging in each string to make sure they work and put these on the tree first. This may be all you do the first evening.”

Then comes the box of decorations. Gillaway says its contents can be broken down into the precious pieces that have sentimental value, the “central characters” and those that fall into the “crowd-scene” category. In her house, the former are those her kids, now age 13 and 15, select and put on the tree first and in premium spots. This is a tradition that began when they were both small.

Then fill in the rest. A smart way to do this is to add a seasonal colour, Gillaway says, suggesting a rich emerald green for Christmas 2018. “You interplay it with the crowd-scene decorations, say pieces you already have in one of the traditional colour schemes like gold and white or gold and red, and hang them in what she calls “bunch-of-grape” formations, taking two of the old decorations and hanging these deeper within the tree, adding the third bauble, a central character decoration, to the fore.

The base of the tree is also important. Tree skirts have made a return, with many choosing a wicker basket as a base. This works well with Scandinavian-style decorations. Another option is to layer the base with muted-coloured sheepskin rugs, in soft greys, mink pinks and charcoals.

Familyflow.ie; Suziemcadam. com">Suziemcadam.com; Christmasland.ie