Vanessa Lachey Shares Tips and Tricks for a Stress-Free Holiday Season (Exclusive)

With the holidays here, families everywhere are preparing to host and attend festive gatherings with their loved ones. And while it’s a time for fun and cheer, it can also bring on a lot of stress — something actress and Dancing With the Stars alum, Vanessa Lachey can understand with her own big family. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, the mom-of-three offered a few tips and tricks for fans on how she incorporates specific steps each year to ensure a stress-free holiday experience.

“I do all my prep, and I have always done my prep the night before. Sometimes, two days before,” Lachey told PopCulture.com, adding how she even picks out the area and tables she and her family will have dinner at up to a week prior. “I lay out all the place settings, all the dishes, all of the service ware, even casserole dishes, and then I put them on the table or the buffet where they will go and I put a sticky in each dish on what dish will be in there.”

She goes on to say that she then saves room for the dishes that family and friends will bring over, carving out a dedicated spot for those.

“Two days before, it’s grocery shopping. The day before, it’s prepping. And the day of, I just enjoy the day with my family, drink my wine and then know that everything has a time to go into … the oven from the fridge,” she detailed.

Lachey even gets a little more detailed by adding extra sticky notes on each dish specifying how long each prepped meal is suppose to be in the oven for and on what temperature, saying as an example, “It’ll say, 2 o’clock these four dishes need to go in at 350 for an hour, and at 3 o’clock this needs to go in for 15 minutes at this temperature.”

One of the biggest tips the TV personality says is a huge help to the host, is not being afraid to ask for help.

“What I mean by that is if people are coming to your house and you’re already setting the table and you’re supplying them with food, and drink, and cocktails, and TV and all that good stuff, ask them to bring a dish,” she said. “For them, it’s one or two dishes to make, but to come to a party, if you think about it of 15 to 20 people and you only made two dishes, for me it helps immensely, and then I feel like they have pride in it. Like, we’ve all come together, we’ve made this feast together. It’s not like I overexerted myself and did all the cooking. We all combined and did it together.”

It’s as simple as that. One last piece to the puzzle is Lachey’s partnership with Libby’s Fruits & Vegetables. They provide so many great, canned goods that it can make prepping a lot easier for her because there’s less chopping and cleaning involved.

“That’s the only love language I speak. I want a stress free holiday, and nothing is more stress free than being able to open your pantry, grab a can of Libby’s Fruits & Vegetables, and open it and start going to town cooking. There’s no washing, there’s not dicing, there’s no peeling. It’s just as easy as it can be,” she explained.

They’re also encouraging everyone to share recipes using their products for their Cansgiving sweepstakes by submitting them online for a chance to win a cash prize. For more information and to see a few of Lachey’s recipes, visit getbacktothetable.com.