The Ultimate 2024 Christmas Checklist & Holiday Planning Guide

• Set a Budget: The first step for Christmas planning is to make a holiday budget that you can commit to. When planning your budget, consider the prices of gifts, holiday cards, decorations, travel, and Christmas Day and Christmas Eve meals.
• Create a Gift List and Brainstorm Gift Ideas: Buying gifts is one of the easiest things to leave until the last minute…so to avoid having to panic shop on Christmas Eve, start thinking about gifts early in your Christmas prep. Make a list of everyone you want to purchase gifts for, and then brainstorm ideas for each person. (If your family has a Secret Santa gift tradition, it is also a good time to get that organized so everyone has plenty of time to buy a gift for their recipient!)
• Schedule Your Christmas Card Family Photoshoot: Want to use a family photo for your holiday card, but don’t have any recent ones? Find a time to get everyone together to take a family picture.
• Make Travel Plans: It is always a good idea to book holiday travel as early as possible to avoid flights and rental cars booking up.
• Decor Planning: Though Halloween isn’t over yet, now is a good time to start mapping out your Christmas decor plans. Decide on a color scheme or theme, take inventory of what you already have, and begin to make a list of any new Christmas decor you’d like to add to your collection.

• Create a Holiday Calendar: November and December are some of the busiest months of the year, so keep on top of everything by mapping out all of your holiday engagements — including Chrstimas prep, holiday parties, and school events — in one centralized place that everyone in your family can reference easily. Minted has some beautiful calendars you can personalize with key dates for a comprehensive holiday planning checklist!
• Start Gift Shopping: Get ahead of the game and begin ordering presents that must be purchased online. They may take a long time to arrive, so the sooner you order, the better.
• Start Planning Your Christmas Card: There are tons of Christmas Card designs to choose from, whether you’re looking for a classic Christmas card or want one designed to show off a big life milestone you achieved this year (think getting married, having a baby, or moving into a new home). Minted’s Holiday Card Guide breaks down how to find the right card for you…and you can even text us the photo you’d like to use, and one of Minted’s expert stylists will mock up designs that will help it shine (for free!).

• Finalize Christmas Day Plans: Decide who among your family and friends is going to host Christmas. If it is your turn to host, start planning the guest list. If there’s any chance guests will be staying in your home, think about where they’ll stay, and see if you need to do anything else to accommodate them.
• Create Your Christmas Card List: Begin making a list of who you want to send your Christmas cards to. Minted’s Address Collection service makes it super easy to gather and update the addresses of everyone on your list — and means that you’ll be able to take advantage of Minted’s Free Recipient Address Printing when you’re ready to order your Christmas cards.

• Buy Final Holiday Decorations/Supplies: Now is the time to stock up on a fresh set of Christmas lights and buy a few new sets of ornaments to match this year’s color scheme. If you’re hosting Christmas Day, it is also a good idea to buy anything you may need to round out your Christmas tablescape and make any guests who will be staying in your home feel welcome.

• Check Your Wrapping Paper Supply: The last thing you want is to be short on wrapping paper in the middle of wrapping gifts! If you need more wrapping paper or just want some new designs, consider getting a mix of anything from classic Christmas wrapping paper to customizable wrapping paper of your family photos.

• Order Your Holiday Cards: After you’ve perfected your Christmas card design, it’s time to place your order! Make sure to order a few extras to send greetings to armed services members spending the holidays overseas and to cover anyone you may have left off of your list. Don’t forget to buy accessories for your Christmas cards to elevate their look. Wax seals, ribbon, colorful envelope liners, and return address labels are perfect tools to make your Christmas card feel extra special.

• Shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales: Once the Thanksgiving meal hangover has subsided, be sure to take advantage of the great sales to purchase gifts for your friends and family. Now is also a good time to stock up on some more generic gifts like bottles of wine, Christmas candles, and boxes of chocolate to have on hand to give to people like your child’s teacher, your mailman, or doctor.
• Put International Gifts in the Mail: Mail any gifts to overseas friends and family who live abroad, as it can take a few weeks for packages to arrive. Add vintage postage stamps to sprinkle some fun to your envelopes.
• Send Christmas Party Invitations: If you are the host of the Christmas festivities this year, now is the time to loop your guests in on all of the important details. This can be as simple as sending out texts or emails to your family, or you can up the festive factor and order a set of fun Christmas party invitations to send out (this is a great idea if you’re hosting a bigger group). No matter which route you choose, be sure to share details like what time guests should arrive, if they should wear anything special, and if you’d like them to bring anything. give your guests a plan. Include when they should arrive, what they should wear, and what they should bring.

• Buy and Decorate Your Christmas Tree: Turn this into a fun family event by going on an excursion to pick the tree as a group. Then, decorate the tree with your friends and family, using your old ornaments as well as any new ones you may have purchased.

• Distribute Advent Calendars: Passing out the advent calendars on the first day of December is a great way to start the official Christmas countdown for 2024. If you have other holiday traditions that begin in December, start those as well. This might include The Elf on the Shelf or reading your children a different Christmas story every night..

• Do a Deep Clean: Doing a deep clean of your home early in the month will help you stay much more organized as the holiday season gets into full swing. Throw out old or expired items from Thanksgiving, and take it as an opportunity to reset before the New Year.
• Put up Decorations: Time to unbox those ornaments, lights, yard decorations, tinsel, and everything else you use to make your homestead look like a winter wonderland! This is such a magical part of Christmas preparations, and it’s always more fun when the whole family gets involved!
• Enjoy Some Christmas Activities: Take advantage of the first full week of the Christmas season by doing some holiday-themed activities like decorating gingerbread houses, going ice skating, or watching your first Christmas movie of the year.
• Plan a Christmas-day Photo: If you are planning on taking family photos on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, make sure everyone has something to wear. If you need inspiration, here are some family Christmas photo ideas:
  • Matching pajamas
  • Ugly (or regular) Christmas sweaters
  • Classic, dressy outfits
  • Casual outfits, in a red and green color scheme
  • Plain outfits, with Santa hats
• Mail Your Christmas Cards: By now you’ve probably received your Christmas cards, so it is time to get them sent out to your nearest and dearest. If you use Minted’s Free Recipient Address service, all you have to do is stuff your cards and mail them. Otherwise, make sure to make an envelope for every person on your list before putting the cards in the mail.

• Plan Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Menus: Spend a couple of hours brainstorming the dishes you’d like to serve on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. When you’re doing this, be sure to do your best to accommodate any dietary restrictions of your guests. When you’re finished building your menu, start putting together a cooking timeline, mapping out which items you can cook in advance, and which will need to wait until the day of to get made.

• Order Special Food Items: Some stores require you to order a fresh turkey or ham up to 10 days in advance. If you want to cook one of those things, check with your local grocery store to see how and when you can place this order, and note it on your holiday planning checklist.
• Start Wrapping Presents: The days leading up to Christmas are going to be a blur, so unless you want to make like Santa and spend all night on December 24th wrapping gifts, it is best to get started as early as you can.

• Go On the Final Big Grocery Run: Go grocery shopping at the end of this week so you can buy perishable groceries along with non-perishable items. While you’re at the grocery store, take off some of your stress by buying pre-made treats – like unfrosted gingerbread cookies – that can be frozen until Christmas.
• Hang the Stockings: Put up a stocking for everyone in your home. If you don’t have a fireplace, crafting a faux mantel from cardboard boxes can be a festive part of Christmas prep for the kids. You can add items to them now or wait until Christmas Eve, depending on your preference.

• Begin Cooking: Stick to your cooking timeline and start prepping the dishes that you can freeze. Don’t leave all of the cooking until Christmas Eve!

• Finish Wrapping Gifts: By now, you should only have a few last-minute gifts that need to be wrapped. So get those taken care of and start organizing any gifts that are from Santa that will need to be put out under the tree on Christmas morning.
• Make a Christmas Playlist: Let everyone in the family contribute their favorite holiday tunes to the playlist, and keep it playing in your house.
• Perform a Final House Inspection: If you’re hosting, do a final check of your home to make sure everything is ready for your guests and stock up on any last-minute essentials that you may have missed!

• Turn on the Christmas Movies: As you approach the end of your Christmas countdown, have a Christmas movie marathon!
• Charge Your Camera and/or Video Camera: Make sure you don’t miss documenting any of the memorable holiday events.
• Get Prepped for Christmas Cooking: Now is the time to finish prepping your holiday menu. Bake cookies, chop up veggies that will get used in dishes on Christmas Day, and more.
• Complete Any Christmas Eve Traditions: If you don’t have any, start a new one! For example, have each child in the family sign their name with the year on the back of a new ornament and then hang it on the Christmas tree. Or consider adding some holiday traditions from around the world to this year's plans.
• Leave Out Cookies and Milk: Santa is going to be hungry!
• Put Out Presents and Fill Stockings: Sneakily put all of the gifts under the tree after the children have gone to sleep.

• Make Christmas Drinks: After waking up, make some drinks that remind you of Christmas, such as hot chocolate or peppermint mochas.
• Open Presents!: This should be hard to forget! While everyone is opening presents, do your best to remind everyone to make a list of what they received, and from whom, so that they can write thank you cards later.

• Share Hanukkah Blessings: This year, the start of Hanukkah aligns with Christmas! So in addition to wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, wish anyone you know who celebrates the holiday a happy Hanukkah.

• Enjoy all of the leftovers to minimize food waste.
• Share Kwanzaa Blessings. Kwanzaa begins on Thursday, December 26, so be sure to send holiday wishes to anyone you know who celebrates.
• Declutter. Now that your children have many new gifts, help them pick out a few things they’ve outgrown. After helping them, pick out a few things for yourself that you no longer need, and donate all of these items to charity.
• Put away decorations. Carefully put away all of your Christmas decorations and unused wrapping paper or supplies to save for next year, and dispose of your Christmas tree.
• Recycle wrapping paper that was torn apart. You can also save and reuse gift bags for next year.
• Write thank you cards to everyone who gave you a gift. If you have children, make sure they do this as well.
• Send Late Holiday Cards. Didn’t get around to sending christmas cards? Don’t worry! Send a New Year photo card instead!

Whether you’re having an intimate Christmas gathering or a huge Christmas party, this Christmas checklist will ensure that you remember everything you need to pull off a super-special holiday season. The end of the year can feel rushed and stressful, but staying organized and sticking to this list will make the months go by as smoothly as possible. Oh, and don’t forget to have fun with your Christmas activities and enjoy being around the people you love as the most important part of preparing for Christmas!