How to get your home ready for Christmas

As we count down to the big day, former Good Housekeeping editor Gaby Huddart shares tips and tricks to get your home fit for the festivities.

By Gaby Huddart | Published - 4 Dec 2025

1. Sprucing up

To get cutlery gleaming, add distilled white vinegar (2 tbsp per litre) to just-boiled water, then dip each item in for a few seconds (holding one end with a tea towel as they may become too hot to hold), before polishing with a clean cloth.
For sparkling glasses, part-fill a washing-up bowl with just-boiled water, then hold each glass over the water for a few seconds until it steams up. Afterwards, polish with a clean tea towel.
Glasses gone cloudy from limescale or too many times in the dishwasher? Soak in a half-warm-water, half-white-vinegar solution for a couple of hours, then rinse and polish.
If your decanter has been gathering dust in the back of a cupboard, you can make it shine like new by filling it with enough distilled white vinegar to cover the stains and leaving for a few hours. Afterwards, rinse with warm water and dry with a cloth. Still see deposits? Repeat, adding a handful of raw rice to the solution and swirling it round the decanter several times. An angled specialist brush can also be useful – try the Valet Decanter Brush (£8.75, Harts of Stur).
To get a grubby roasting tin clean ahead of festive feasting, fill it with hot water and dissolve 2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda or one dishwasher tablet. Simmer on the hob for 15 minutes, then pour the mixture away (using oven gloves to move it). Wash as normal with washing-up liquid and you’ll see old residues disappear.
Out of oven cleaner and no professional services available? A quick – and fragrant – way to clean a grubby oven is to steam it with lemon water. Half-fill an ovenproof dish with hot water, add the juice of two lemons and the squeezed-out lemon halves, then pop in the oven and bake on a low heat (approx. 130˚C) for 25-30 minutes (watching in case the water needs topping up). The liquid will fill the oven with citrus steam, and you’ll be able to wipe away the worst of the grime once the oven has cooled.
Light a festive scented candle an hour before guests arrive to create a Christmas atmosphere. Some great choices are The White Company Winter Signature Candle (£25, Look Fantastic), the Neom Cosy Nights Scented Candle (£40, Neom) and the Molton Brown Orange & Bergamot Single Wick Candle (£45, Molton Brown). Or try Aldi’s Snow Globe Candle (£9.99, Aldi), which smells of pine, eucalyptus and musk. A fabulous DIY festive fragrance can also be created by simmering a pan of water with orange slices, cinnamon sticks, whole cranberries, cloves and rosemary. Just ensure the pan doesn’t boil dry.

Tea lights under a Christmas tree — Getty Images

2. Fridge magnet

If you’re doing a lot of entertaining, you’re bound to be storing more food than normal, and it’s vital that you keep ingredients fresh (and safe), so follow these helpful rules.

Ensure that the temperature inside your fridge is between 0 and 5°C (use a fridge thermometer).
Keep raw meat at the bottom of the fridge to prevent harmful bacteria cross-contaminating ready-to-eat foods. Store cold meat above raw meat, and make sure it’s well wrapped.
Store dairy at the top of the fridge, and keep cheese in an airtight container as it can pick up flavours from other ingredients.
Ensure that any desserts containing cream, such as trifle, are completely covered. And always store them above raw ingredients.
Freezer bags are a brilliant way of saving space in a full fridge at Christmas – use them for dishes you prepare ahead of time, such as bread sauce. Once the dish is cooked and cooled, put it in the bag, make sure it's fully sealed and sit upright.
Never store food in an opened tin can. When the food is exposed to the air, the tin from the can may transfer to the food inside.
Leftovers should be put in the fridge within 90 minutes of cooling down. The Food Standards Agency suggests not keeping leftovers for more than 48 hours.

Visit Lakeland for storage containers and freezer bags.

Woman putting leftovers in the fridge — Getty Images

3. Brilliant buys

A knife sharpener – to ensure that you don’t end up hacking at your beautifully cooked turkey. Try the AnySharp Pro Metal World’s Best Knife Sharpener with Suction (£15, Amazon).
A meat thermometer – to take the guesswork out of whether the bird or joint is cooked through. Try the Grey Fork Meat Thermometer (£19, ProCook). Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh and breast, and check that the temperature has reached 74°C.
A set of Silicone-Coated Cooking Spatulas – for stirring sauces and more (£3.99, Lakeland).
A Heavy-Gauge Enamel Roasting Tin – for ensuring that the roast is in a deep enough pan and doesn’t stick (£37, ProCook).
A Silicone Trivet – so you can put down hot pots and pans while protecting your kitchen surface (£4, ProCook).

Woman roasting a turkey in a kitchen — Getty Images

4. Handy to know

To make a real Christmas tree last, care for it as you would a house plant in a warm, dry atmosphere, and water it daily.
Need to chill champagne quickly? Submerge the bottle in an ice bucket filled half with water and half with ice, adding a generous amount of salt – about 4 tbsp or a large handful. The salt lowers the freezing point of the water, so you’ll be good to pop the cork in 10-15 minutes – quicker and safer than putting it in the freezer, where it’s at risk of exploding.
There’s nothing worse than spoiling a wonderful Christmas lunch with poor gravy, which should be the perfect complement to the big bird. At Good Housekeeping, I learnt from my cookery director to make it a day ahead (her recipe involved simmering vegetable stock with roasted veg and porcini, before sieving), so that it just needs reheating on the day. Her secret ingredient? Adding half a teaspoon of coffee granules along with a generous slug of wine. For meat eaters, the lovely cooking juices from the turkey (skimmed of fat) can be added before serving. Delicious!

Person with white watering can watering Christmas tree — Getty Images

5. Oops! – dealing with spills

Red wine – if this goes on your carpet, dab with sparkling water, then blot with white paper towels. Wine No More! Red Wine Stain Remover Spray (£6.99, Lakeland) is handy to have on standby. If the wine goes on your clothing, spray the stain with hairspray, then wash it at as high a temperature as permitted on the label. The alcohol in the hairspray will dissolve the stain’s pigments, while the surfactants will break down the stain’s molecules.
Grease, gravy or chocolate – on a carpet, use Dr Beckmann Carpet Stain Remover (£3.50, Amazon). For clothes, Stain Devils Fat & Sauces (£7.49, Amazon) is your friend.
Candlewax – if it drips on the carpet, harden with ice, then scrape away with a blunt knife. On fabrics, place the waxy area between paper towels and iron on a low heat – the towels will absorb the wax.

Knocked over glass with red wine stain on carpet — Getty Images

6. Fabulous and frugal

Make things special without splashing out…

Forage for decorations – pine cones, holly, ivy, even branches of fir look fabulous, especially when painted gold (Paint Factory gold spray paint, £5.11 for a can, Amazon).
Food costs can spiral over the festive period. Use the Love Food Hate Waste online portion planner to work out the right quantities for the number of people you’re catering for.
For Christmas lunch, consider going for a frozen turkey instead of fresh, as they cost far less. A turkey crown will serve up to six, and represents great value.
If you’ll be entertaining a lot, it’s worth bulk-buying wine by the case. Try Vintage by Saga.
Giving your time to a loved one is a thoughtful and valuable gift. The Money Saving Expert website has ‘Christmas cheques’ that you can print off and fill out to give away anything from babysitting to gardening.
There's nothing wrong with regifting – passing on items you’ve received that you haven’t used. You just need to be careful not to regift a present back to the person who gave it to you in the first place!

Two pine cones sprayed with gold paint against a light coloured background — Getty Images

(Hero image credit: Getty)

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