4 Helpful Tricks to Make Sure Your Home is Ready for Christmas

Christmas is a wonderful time to both stay at a home or to travel and be with loved ones. If you're planning to hit the roads, here are four steps you should take to get your home ready for Christmas.

Get A Timer For Your Lights

Put your Christmas lights on a timer. It is important to protect your home while you are out celebrating. Getting a timer for your lights is a great way to appear as though you are home so that burglars pass on by. By programming your lights you can also save money by turning them off during the day, as well as the wee hours of the night. In addition to saving money on electricity and protecting your house, don’t forget that it took you 5 hours to put them up in the first place! Get some good use out of that Christmas Cheer.

Program Your Thermostat

An easy way to save some money while you are away is to get a programmable thermostat. Many thermostats can connect to your smartphone and that way you can adjust your home temperature remotely for any unpredictable winter weather. You will save energy and money while you are away, but your house will also be ready for you when you get home. Coming back to real life after Christmas vacation is the worst, but there is nothing more miserable than coming home after Christmas break to a freezing cold home. Set the thermostat to save you money while you are gone then program it to heat back up to welcome you with open arms.

Make Arrangements For Your Mail

Have a neighbor pick up your mail. I hate to say this but people do take advantage of others around Christmas and often times try and steal mail and packages off doorsteps. Don’t worry about this happening to you by simply asking a neighbor to pick it up when they pick up theirs. If you don’t know your neighbors very well, my mom used to ask our friends to do it for us. You can pay them a couple dollars a day or bring them back a little Christmas treat.

Prepare For Snow

Depending on where you live sprinkling your driveway and doorsteps with salt can help prepare your house for your return. As you might know, the sooner you shovel the driveway after it snows, the better. The longer you wait, often times the worse the ice is. If you aren’t there to shovel it and you don’t want to hire someone to do it for you, before you leave your house, sprinkle some salt around the walking and driving areas. The salt dissolves into the moisture and lowers the freezing point so the snow melts and doesn’t form into ice. If you happen to live next to Kevin Mccallister I’m pretty sure he has a neighbor friend who is known for salting driveways.