The Christmas holidays are just around the corner, and it’s time to start getting your home ready for the season’s festive entertainment. Put on a great show this year all while reducing stress by incorporating these five easy but effective holiday home staging tips into your preparatory routine.

Small touches at the dinner table

The dinner table is the focus of most holiday family gatherings, so adding a few extra touches here and there can go a long way toward creating a more inviting and memorable experience. Our experts recommend placing smaller, shorter decorative elements between place settings rather than in the centre of the table. This leaves more room for food, makes conversation and interaction easier, and creates a stronger sense of separation between seats.

Oh, and don’t forget the candles! They are a Christmastime must.

Spruce up your kitchen

Pop a wreath on the wall, add some seasonal flowers to a vase, and hang a sprig of mistletoe over the entryway to your kitchen. These small additions will be sure to keep you in the holiday spirit while you prepare tempting meals, create tasty desserts, and take care of the Christmas baking.

However, make sure to lose the clutter before you spruce things up. You’re sure to need extra room in the kitchen at Christmas, so start by finding a temporary home for all nonessentials.

Make sure there’s plenty of seating

Beyond getting an accurate count on the number of guests you’ll be hosting, you should also think seating logistics through carefully. Ideally, you’ll want to arrange your permanent and temporary seating in one or two large circles so everyone can face each other.

Optimizing your space to help the flow of conversation may require you to reconfigure your furnishings. To this end, experts recommend consolidating as much as possible by creating an open, barrier-free layout everyone can move around in.

Welcome guests to your bathroom

Don’t overlook the bathroom—it’s one part of your home virtually every guest will visit!

Here are a few warm touches you can use to spread the Christmas cheer in your bathrooms:

• Scented hand soap
• Holiday-themed hand towels
• Floral arrangements
• Wreaths and candles
• Seasonal bath mats

These small, inexpensive items pack a major punch when it comes to getting your guests in the holiday spirit.

Add thoughtful accessories

Finally, go through the rooms where you’ll be doing most of your entertaining and think about accessories you can add to make a holiday statement. For example, if you’ve removed a coffee table from your family room to give people extra space to move around, could you fill the vacant floor with a holiday-themed throw rug? What about hand-knitted, Christmas blankets or sofa coverings? Maybe a string of Christmas lights?

If you plan ahead and allow yourself even a modest budget, you can transform your home into a happy den of holiday cheer with one quick trip to your local home retailer and a few spare hours.

Jethro Seymour, one of the Top Davisville Village Real Estate Brokers, is a midtown Toronto residential specialist with over 20 years of sales experience in real estate, marketing, construction and publishing. He has helped many families find homes in Toronto’s great neighbourhoods, and has extensive knowledge of local markets, new home construction, resale home sales, and the condo market. Living in midtown Toronto, Jethro previews many of the homes that come to market for his clients and inventory knowledge. Jethro specializes in Midtown, Davisville Village and Leaside neighbourhoods. For more information, call Jethro Seymour, Broker.