Making room for Christmas: ideas for getting our home ready for the festive season

Christmas is just around the corner, bringing with it the wonderful anticipation of everything we love about the festive season. The tree waiting to be decorated, presents beginning to pile up in a corner, the aromas wafting from the kitchen and friends we can’t wait to welcome. But before our homes fill with festive cheer, there’s one small step that can make all the difference: creating a little more space for everything that’s to come. With a few simple organisation ideas and a little help from IKEA, we can get our home ready without any stress and enjoy our favourite time of year even more. Start with a little home refresh There’s no need to transform our entire home to get into the Christmas spirit. All it takes is to take a fresh look at each room and consider what we actually use on a daily basis. Has the living room coffee table become cluttered with magazines and miscellaneous items? Could the hallway do with a little more order or the kitchen worktops benefit from some extra space? By starting small, we create more functional spaces and make room for the Christmas decorations to follow. Prep the entrance to avoid pile-ups During the festive season, the entrance to our home sees more use than ever. Coats, bags, shoes and shopping bags often end up piled together in the same spot. A coat stand, a shoe cabinet or a small chest of drawers can help keep the area tidy, even when guests come to visit. If we have a little spare space, we can also add a small tray for keys and other everyday essentials. This makes for a warmer welcome and helps make everyday life that little bit easier. Make space in the living room for special moments The living room is often at the heart of the festive celebrations. It’s where we gather to watch a Christmas film, open presents and enjoy conversations late into the night, while munching on traditional Greek almond and honey-soaked kourabiedes and melomakarona. To get the room ready, we can put away anything we don’t need on a daily basis and organise remote controls, toys and magazines in storage baskets. We can choose different sizes to suit our needs and place them on shelves, in bookcases or inside cupboards. Sort Christmas decorations ahead of use Before we start buying baubles, garlands, lights and other decorations, it’s worth tidying what we already have. We can sort decorations into categories and check which we’d like to use this year. Fragile decorations should be stored with care, while putting lights away should ensure cables stay free of tangles. This makes decorating the tree and home a more enjoyable experience and, when the festive season comes to an end, makes it much easier to put everything away neatly in practical storage boxes. Knowing what we already have also helps identify what we actually need, to avoid filling our homes with things we have nowhere to put or store. Organise the kitchen before cooking and baking From biscuits and sweet treats to festive meals, the kitchen takes centre stage at this time of year. That’s why it’s worth checking our cupboards, organising our kitchenware and clearing some space on the worktops. We can keep our baking utensils together in one place and arrange everyday kitchen essentials where they are easy to find. A few baskets or drawer organisers can help us make better use of the available space, while organising our food supplies allows us to see what we already have and what we need to buy. Keep preparations simple and enjoy the season The most important thing to remember is that getting ready does not have to happen in a single day. We can organise one room at a time, start with the areas we find most challenging and leave the decorating until we feel ready. With practical storage solutions, boxes, baskets and furniture that serves more than one purpose, we can make our homes more functional without having to make major changes. After all, getting our homes ready for Christmas does not mean that everything has to be perfect. It means making room for what really matters: our loved ones, little traditions, laughter around the table and the moments that make this time of year so special. So, let’s start a little earlier, take small steps and enjoy the process. A visit to an IKEA store or a browse through ikea.com.cy is a great place to start!