5 Easy Ways to Prep Your Kitchen for the Holidays

Starting in the fall, evaluate your kitchen to see if it is ready for the coming autumn and winter holidays. This is the time to notice if you have any leftover summer items, iced tea makers, outdoor grill accessories, or cookware that you use only in the summer months. If so, you'll want to remove them from the kitchen and store them until you need them again.

Here are 5 simple ways that you can prep your kitchen for the upcoming season so that you're ready for all the holiday goodness that you'll be cooking and baking to share with family and friends.

Go Through Your Cabinets

If you use seasonal glassware and china, remove the everyday sets and replace them with your holiday sets. Swap out your margarita or pina colada glasses with your Irish coffee glassware or your eggnog cups.

Look in Your Food Pantry

Do you have the ingredients you need for your famous nut bread, the kids' beloved frosted butter cookies, or the pineapple rings to put on the ham? If not, make a list of all those cooking and baking items that you need to purchase and keep in stock. There's nothing worse than needing to run out at the last minute for that one ingredient that you're missing.

Clean Out Your Pantry

While you're making a list of what you will need to buy, go through what's in there now and throw out old spices or foods past their expiration date to make room for your new holiday ingredients.

Clean Out Your Freezer

You will need extra freezer space during the holidays. Remove everything from the freezer and evaluate what you have. Plan on using the ingredients you have stored in your freezer rather than buying new meats or vegetables. Clean out the refrigerator for the same reason.

Give the Kitchen a Good Cleaning

Save your holiday time for baking and enjoying family activities; don't save the cleaning until right before Thanksgiving or between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Take a weekend and deep clean now so future cleanings won't need to be so intense.

Dust cabinets, clean out drawers, clean the outside of the stove, the dishwasher, the refrigerator, and any counter appliances. Put on your self-cleaning oven so that when you do bake you won't be filling the house with smoke and grease.

By now your kitchen is ready for the coming holidays. All you have to do is maintain it and you'll have a kitchen that will look good and function well right through New Year's Day.

We hope you loved Simply Amazing Living's “5 Easy Ways to Prep Your Kitchen for the Holidays” article.