Some Simple Holiday Hacks

Tired of the holiday season even before it starts? Needing a little help in keeping things organized and unbroken for at least another year? Try these holiday hacks.

Family holiday shopping can typically be used as a convenient excuse to buy everyone new clothes; nothing says “I love you” like a new package of socks to go with that ugly holiday sweater. At the same time, buying a bunch of clothes can also mean more clothing hangers suddenly being left around the house. Our advice? Don’t toss the hangers out with the rest of the holiday garbage.

Whether they’re made of wire or plastic, clothing hangers can be a useful tool during the holidays. Coat hangers come in handy for organizing more than just the coat closet. If you’ve got rolls of wrapping paper and can’t stop them from falling over and rolling every which way across the floor, stand them up together in a bunch and pull a hanger over them to create a wrapping paper bundle pack. Use more than one hanger to increase the bundle’s stability.

Worried about tangling up the holiday lights? Just wrap the cords around a hanger and boom, no more tangled tripping hazards or knotted light gear that takes forever to unwind. That will also come in handy when the time comes to pack up the lights and put them away until next year. If you don’t have any extra clothing hangers available, a flat piece of cardboard can also work.

And speaking of lights…

It’s one of the standards of the holiday season, right up there with the carols and the sudden surplus of eggnog in the dairy section. When engaging in holiday practices, sooner or later it means having to put up the lights. And unless you’re the kind of person that goes out and buys new light fixtures each year, that probably means you’ll be using the same lights you’ve been using for years.

Want to get a little more creative with your holiday light options? Start by running lights through a house hallway, either along the wall or on the ceiling, to create an indoor light tunnel. And alternate the size of the light bulbs used on the light chain; small lights mixed with big lights creates a more vibrant display compared to the chain of one-size-fits-all-situations light fixtures.

The same trick works for Christmas trees. Wrap two sets of different-sized lights though the tree, and the final affect can be wondrous. It can also attract the cat if the lights flash.

If you’re hosting a holiday party and want to limit the number of dishes you’ll have to clean later, the plastic cups will be invaluable. And if you’ve still got some left around when the party ends, think about using them for holiday storage. More specifically, use them for ornament storage.

Putting away ornaments usually means buying a Sunday newspaper and spending hours wrapping the ornaments in the sports section before putting them into a crate, mostly because holiday ornaments tend to be delicate things. Instead, use the plastic cups as individual ornament containers and stack them in a storage bin.