Countdown to Christmas – one week to go!

Ready for the big day? Read the last of our festive planning series and look forward to a happy Christmas!

It’s so close you can almost hear Santa’s reindeer! Just one week to go and Nerissa Buckell from online gifts, homewares and accessories website Crimson Tiger shares her final Christmas wisdom with us.

Create your Christmas timetable

Hopefully you are fully prepared for the next couple of weeks and can sit back and enjoy yourself with little stress. Before you get too relaxed you have a few jobs to do.

If you are cooking Christmas dinner make a timetable of what you have to do. Start backwards with the time you want to be serving the dinner at the table and then write out what time you have to take the turkey out of the oven, put the potatoes on, stuffing, etc.

If your phone has a reminder service on which you can programme date and times, do it now.

Where to hide the kids’ presents?

I have one problem which always causes a sniping session between my husband and I. He always insists we hide the children’s presents in the loft, and he goes up just before we go to bed on Christmas Eve and brings them all down thinking he is being really quiet.

There is no way anyone could sleep through the noise he makes. But where do we hide them? Four boys, no garage, and they see our bedroom as a fair target for present snooping.

It is something that I have not solved in 16 years, and a scenario that usually ends up with a very grumpy Mrs Christmas. Any suggestions?

Take your stress out on the washing up!

Whatever happens, Christmas should be a relaxed occasion and if anything goes wrong it should not be the end of the world. One Christmas all six of us went down one by one with gastroenteritis creating a family game of pass the bucket. It may have been a rubbish Christmas Day but it has become a part of our family history.

And if the family become stressful, pretend the dishwasher has broken and go off and wash up. It’s amazing how much aggression you can get out squeezing a sponge!

Whatever happens I hope you have a lovely and (if you’ve been following all my advice!) stress-free Christmas!

Looking for Christmas gift inspiration? You’ll find plenty of good ideas at Crimson Tiger.