October 2015
Make Your House a Home This Christmas
Some people love the idea of starting Christmas early… others hate the idea of it! Personally at Venture we LOVE it!!! What’s better than getting your house prepared early for all of the Christmas celebrations that are yet to come? The advantages of preparing your home for Christmas in October, is that when all the stressful part of the season arrives- buying presents for family you forgot about, your friend at work saying they have got you a little gift so you have to make a quick trip to the nearest shopping centre, secret Santa, buying all of the Christmas dinner, finding out the cousin that you haven’t see in 5 years is making a surprise appearance to your house for Christmas dinner, so you have to make another quick visit to the supermarket, the list goes on and on! It means that you have already prepared the most important aspect… your home!
A home isn’t a home at Christmas if it is not full of family, celebrations, Christmas decorations, and family memories. This is why we believe that preparing early is the way forward. We have condensed our top 10 tips on how to prepare for Christmas this year!
1. Create your master gift list early – instead of leaving your Christmas shopping list to the last minute this year, be prepared and organise who you are going to buy Christmas presents for, ideas on what you will get them and the best tip…. Decide on a budget! Every year it is so easy to spend crazy amounts of money, and let’s face it, more that we wanted too! By deciding on a budget early on and creating a present’s list, you will be able to monitor your budget so much easier!
2. Get the tree ready to bring down from the loft – One of the best bits about Christmas is actually putting the tree and decorations up! One of the worst parts is bringing the tree down from the loft or going out and buying a new tree. By getting your tree early will mean that when it comes to putting it up, you won’t need to stress about getting someone to help you, this will make the whole process a lot more fun.
3. Prepare your To Do list for Christmas dinner – We all know the closer it gets to Christmas, the more the supermarkets will sell out of EVERYTHING! Therefore make your list sooner, and buy as much as you can early! This will reduce stress in the long run as you are less likely to forget something… such as the stuffing!
4. Spend quality family time – Don’t let Christmas overwhelm you, one of the best things about Christmas is the memories that you create along the way. Whether this be a trip to the cinema to watch a new film, or play out in the snow (if we are lucky enough this year), memories are built from spending time with one another.
5. See the family that you haven’t for a while – Go see the Aunty you haven’t seen since last November! The closer to Christmas you get, the busier you seem to be and the less time you seem to have. Family can be tricky at Christmas as everyone wants to see you at once- therefore if you spread your visits out, you will be less likely to offend anyone or cause any family rifts!
6. Book in a Venture shoot! – Booking a shoot with us is a great idea at Christmas time, mainly for two reasons. This is a great idea and solution to getting everyone together in the same place at Christmas time. As a result you can see family that you haven’t for a while, or you get to spend quality time with family! Not only will you end up having a fantastic day out, but you will also leave with some fantastic images. These images can either be used to make your house more homely, by getting your family image on the wall before Christmas, or they can be used as presents for family gifts.
7. Christmas Cards – Create your Christmas card list early and get them sent out as soon as they are wrote. Make sure you do this before you end up putting them in that draw in the kitchen that nothing ever seems to come out of… Big mistake!
8. Wrap gifts as you buy them– By wrapping your Christmas gifts and putting the gift tags on as and when you buy the presents, will help you monitor who you have bought for, how many you have bought and it will also reduce the chance of you losing them, getting pinched by someone in the house, or people having a sneaky peak of what you have bought them!
9. Deep clean your house – We all know that around Christmas lots of family members will visit you on a regular basis. If you are house proud (like me) you will freak out when an unexpected visitor arrives at your door and you haven’t quite finished putting the washing away or you haven’t had chance to hoover the dog fur up off the carpet yet! Therefore by deep cleaning your house, will help you maintain the house on a day to day basis so that hopefully, you can avoid those nasty and embarrassing situations.
10. Set the table – Christmas morning never goes to plan and can sometimes be quite hectic. From making breakfast, to opening the presents, to putting the dinner on and forgetting that you haven’t put the turkey in the oven yet- everything can get quite overwhelming! Setting the table sometimes gets lost in the list of things to do as you are so preoccupied with everything else. Therefore a fantastic tip is to set the table the day before. Doing this will reduce the to do list on Christmas morning, and you will also notice in plenty of time if you appear to be one fork short!
Visit one of our studios this Christmas and get your family booked in for a fantastic Christmas Venture Shoot!
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