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Preparing Your Home for Winter
Place insulated covers over all exterior spigots or allow them to drip until the temperature rises above freezing.
Seal your deck. Choose a day before the temperature drops below 50 degrees.
Keep the heat on! Do not shut off the heat if you are out of town for a few days. Just set it to 60 degrees F so it doesn’t get too cold.
Allow interior spigots to drip if they are on exterior walls.
Turn off water that only goes to exterior pipes before they freeze.
Close crawlspace vents to help keep cold air out.
Clear leaves out of your gutters before the ice freezes them in.
If you have a dog, keep paw wipes by the front and patio door so your pet’s muddy paws can be cleaned at the entrance.
Check for pipes in the crawlspace or attic that are not insulated that could freeze.
To keep snow from sticking to your shovel, wipe it down with some car wax before. This will make it take much less time to shovel since you won’t be struggling to shake all the snow off the shovel.
Keep the cabinet doors under the sink open to allow heat in.
Preparing Your Closet for Winter
Make space before winter items come out. They take up a lot more space than clothes for other seasons. Make sure you have plenty of empty hooks, hangers and bins for them.
Consider giving each family member a basket to keep their items in. This can help prevent fighting over precious space.
A scarf hanger near the entrance of your home is also a great way to keep scarves organized.
Make sure wall hooks are sufficiently attached to the walls. When heavy coats get hung up, hooks can often pop right out of the wall. Prepare for this before coats start getting added.
Get a plastic hanging organizer with large pockets. Put hats, gloves and scarves into it to keep them organized and visible.
Preparing Your Car for Winter
Make sure the air-recirculation button is switched off. This forces the outside air through your heater core so that it’s warm by the time it reaches you. It will also help your windows to de-fog faster.
Change to winter tires.
Lube your weather stripping so that you don’t get locked out of your car if it freezes.
Change your oil and antifreeze.
Make sure your heater is working properly.
Keep a pair of socks to put on your windshield wipers when they are up, so they don’t get covered in snow and frozen. Alternately, you can look into switching to winter windshield wipers for the season.
Use a mix of water and rubbing in a spray bottle to spray the ice off your windshield. You can also apply white vinegar to the windshield the night before a big snow is coming to help it melt away.
Replace the cabin air filter. You can buy a replacement cheaply and replace it yourself, following your car’s owner’s manual. Just make sure to check which direction it faces when you remove the old one.
To avoid losing control of your car on icy roads, place a large heavy bag (such as sand or mulch) in your trunk to balance the weight.
Keep your car stocked with:
- emergency flares
- flashlight
- ice scraper
- shovel
- rock salt to melt ice
- reflectors
- warm blankets (in case you get stranded)
- extra hats and gloves
- a bag of cat litter or traction sweep absorbent to regain traction on ice
Winter is brutal on hands. The dry air is bad enough, but add on constantly taking gloves on and off all day and they really get irritated. Keep hand lotion in your driver’s door. Put some on the back of your hands when you get into the car. Rub the back of your hands together so they are covered, without getting the lotion onto the front of your hands (which need it less, and also shouldn’t be slippery when you’re driving).
Winter with Children
The long stretch between Winter and Spring breaks is fortunately broken up for students with many special days at school. But these often involve dressing up, so help yourself be prepared by planning those outfits ahead of time. Here are a few common ones:
- 100th Day of school: this one often involves dressing up like yourself at 100
- Valentine’s Day: pink, red, white & violet clothes, or themed t-shirts
- Dr. Seuss Day: dress up as your favorite character
- Patrick’s Day: green clothes, accessories, and even hair dye
- Spirit Week dress-up days can include:
- Twin Day
- Sports Day
- Career Day
- Decades Day
- Superhero Day
- Book Character Day
- Crazy Hair or Hat Day
- Mismatched or Backwards Clothes Day
- Tye Dye Day
- Western Day
- Space Day
- Pajama Day
- Pirate Day
- Beach Day
- Dress-As-a-Teacher Day
- School Colors Day
- Costume Day
- Historical Figure Day
- Heritage Day
- Neon Day
Pack plastic storage bins with snow and build an igloo or fort on a snow day.
Muddy shoes making a mess in the car? Keep two shower caps in each car door to have your children put over their shoes while in the car. Wash these out once a week.
Keep a pair of loose plastic gloves for when your child is about to run into the snow with fabric gloves. Put them on top so they don’t get soaked through.
No need to toss them afterward. Just keep them handy to use over and over again.
If you don’t want to wash the mittens and jacket together, sew a hook to the end of a strong ribbon and attach it to the sleeves. Sew loops onto the mittens. This way, they can be unhooked for the laundry, but are still strongly attached (more so than just regular mitten clips which easily come detached from coats).
Another winter tip:
Set a side a basket, wall bin or envelope labeled “Taxes.” As tax documents come home from work or arrive in the mail, put them in right away to make sure they don’t get lost.
Looking to stay organized for Christmas, specifically? Check out Christmas Without the Chaos.
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