December Home Checklist

December Home Checklist: 10 Things to clean and maintain around your home in the final month of 2010.

Click here for a printable checklist.

1 Get in the Spirit.

Hang exterior lights and decorations.

Make sure Rudolph’s nose still shines and Santa still waves.

2 Deck the Halls.

Put up greenery and the tree. (Soak greenery 24 hours before putting up to help it last longer.)

3 Finishing Touches.

Take out ornaments and decorations and carefully dust away a year's worth of debris.

Check light strands for duds and replace with fresh bulbs.

4 Ornament Yourself.

Clean your jewelry so you’ll sparkle at parties, too.

5 Be Our Guests.

Prepare guest rooms for your holiday visitors.

Make sure you create an inviting, welcoming haven with everything your guests might need to enjoy the holidays.

6 Take Time for Touch Ups.

Clean front-and-center interior surfaces to ensure they sparkle - along with you - this holiday season.

Be sure to include kitchen counters, appliances, and the all-important guest bathroom on your prepping-the-home-for-the-holidays to-do list.

And plan to check it twice before guests arrive.

7 Create a Gift-Wrap Central.

To simplify your holiday gift-wrapping, set up your own present-prep center like the pros do - with everything needed in a single, well-organized area.

Stock with brightly colored gift wrap paper, ribbon for curling, bows, tape, scissors, ornaments – and anything else that will add that special, personal stamp to your family's holiday gifts this year.

8 Tech Support.

Give the kids a job they will actually enjoy: Let them create and/or organize the holiday tunes play list.

Give them the entertaining guidelines: classic holiday tunes for a family dinner; upbeat seasonally inspired dance tunes for the holiday cocktail party, a mix for Christmas Eve or Christmas day entertaining.

9 Encore!

And when they’re through, get them to organize and label your personal family videos or DVDs for everyone's future viewing pleasure while the relatives are in town.

Any back talk, just remind them that Santa’s making his list…