{Fa la la Bowl/Marble Serving Tray} *affiliate links used 

We are in full holiday prep mode at our house!  Well.. by “we” I mean “me” and the rest of my crew is happily along for the ride. :)  Today I’m sharing a few fun things I picked up from eBay to help me get ready for the holidays this year.  I was so excited when they reached out to partner on another post because I had so much fun decorating my laundry room with fun eBay finds.  I still can’t believe that 81% of the items they sell are new!  So many great deals.  I love their selection of new kitchen/home items and was thrilled to find this gorgeous Kate Spade bowl for the holidays!  Fa-la-la.. I think it was made for me. :)  I’ve been looking for a small marble serving tray for a while now so I also picked up this one and plan to get one or two more.  We are hosting a few different parties over the next two months so I’ve been on the hunt for fun holiday serving pieces!  These are a few other options I’ve been considering..

My kids got to test out my new bowl with a fun movie treat the other night.  We’re big popcorn people (you already knew that about us?) and adding some holiday candy and pretzels to our popcorn takes things up a notch to “special.”

We’re also easy to please people.

{Similar Pumpkin Serving Dish}

This family holiday tradition started years ago with a simple popcorn Halloween mix I threw together for my girls when they were little to accompany a Barbie movie.  Has anyone been with me long enough to remember that?  :)

Of course I couldn’t stop there.  Grapes and strawberries and bananas are three fruits we always have on hand at our house so when I found a simple Christmas treat on Pinterest I thought I’d try making it for my kids to see if it would become another holiday favorite.

Can you tell what these are?  Grinch Santas!  Just fruit on a toothpick with a marshmallow on top.  Something even I can do. ;)  I knew what they were the second I saw a picture of them, but I was cracking up when Kenny got home and couldn’t tell!  He was so confused and the look on his face when he was holding one upside down made me laugh.

Of course that didn’t stop him from eating half of them.

My kids rolled their eyes at my attempt to make a “Pinworthy” treat, but then they promptly gobbled up what was left so regardless of the reaction from my family, I’d say the treats were a success.

Did you want to start calling me Martha?  It’s ok.. go ahead.  Really.  I don’t mind.

Rest assured that I have friends helping with the food for all of my holiday parties.  But that won’t stop me from impressing everyone with a few of my Grinch Santas.  I’m on a roll.  Ha. :)

Ok.. now let’s chat about my for real favorite type of holiday prep.  Getting the house ready!  I always have the same routine for early November.  I take down all of my Fall/Halloween decor and just live with my house empty for a couple of days.  I love having this in-between time to get my house clean!  I try to set aside two mornings to just quickly go through each room and organize.  Not a major clean out, but a quick “organize as much as I can” clean out.

I ordered this Dyson Portable Handheld Vacuum from eBay to help me get the house ready for the holidays and I’m seriously so in love!  I have so many friends who love and swear by Dyson vacuums and eBay has such a great selection of different styles.  I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without one in my life!  We have Central Vac in our house and I’ve been really happy with it, but the only downside of that system is that it’s a bit of a pain to pull out the long cord and vacuum for smaller, quick vacuum jobs.  This Dyson is lightweight and easy to hold.  So handy for quick clean outs!  It also has a really strong suction and with no cord it’s easy to just carry room to room.  It gets the job DONE.  I’m such a fan.  (Tempted to get another one to keep in my car!)

A few things I do to get my house ready for the holidays:

1) Wash all sheets in the bedrooms.  I get these going in the washer first and then I start my room to room pick up!

2) Quick overall room pick up.  Anything obvious we aren’t using or I’m not loving anymore goes in a black sack and off to Goodwill.

3) In the kitchen I wipe down my fridge/freezer and straighten my pantry  (tossing things that are old/expired).

{You can get my favorite dream drawer dividers here- not pictured above but what I use to organize most of my drawers}

4) Organize and vacuum out drawers.  Like I said, this isn’t the time for anything major, but I try to go through our most often used drawers and give them a quick clean out.  Toss garbage, straighten things up and vacuum out any crumbs.  (LOVE my new Dyson for cleaning crumbs/dust out of drawers!)

Why yes.. I’m back on my tiptoes on this counter again.  My hang out every time the season changes.. ;)

5)  Wipe off/dust or vacuum shelves.  I especially love doing this with all of the decor put away.  I’ve always struggled to clean off this shelf over my oven.  Not anymore!  New vacuum to the rescue.  Did I mention I’m in love!? :)

Once I’ve gone through each room and quickly picked up I feel like I can start pulling out my Christmas decor.  YEA!  Bring it on.  Then I’m surrounded by flocking and boxes and glitter and garland.

And once again my new vacuum to the rescue. ;)

*Huge thank you to eBay for sponsoring this post!  And for introducing me to my new soulmate.  I will be forever grateful.   #justagirlandhervacuum.

:)

There is a huge Dyson deal going on through eBay for the next few days!

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