The holiday season is upon us. As you’re preparing your home for gatherings, it’s easy to fixate on food and drinks while overlooking another important need: phone chargers. Setting up a charging station can be a simple yet thoughtful gesture that your guests will truly appreciate.

Why a Charging Station Is a Good Idea

Most of us only have enough chargers around the house to power our own devices. Even then, there often aren’t enough chargers for the whole family, so when each guest arrives with their phones, tablets, and earbuds, your house can quickly start to feel like a mini Best Buy.

Let’s be honest, as much as we want to unplug for the holidays, we’re all a little too attached to our smartphones. If your guests start getting low-battery anxiety, they’ll spend half the evening asking for a charger. Before you know it, you’ll be scrambling to find spare chargers as your guests wander from outlet to outlet, making your life of serving Christmas turkey even harder. There will be smartphones and tablets strewn about the place in inconvenient places, which is something you probably want to avoid.

By setting up a charging station, you can simply direct your guests to it, instantly ending any charger-related conversations. Well, they might ask you where you got the idea for a charging station, and then you can point them to this article!

Don’t worry; setting up a charging station won’t necessarily encourage guests to stay glued to their phones. If that ends up being the case, they likely would have done the same with just one outlet and charger.

How to Set Up a Charging Station

Start by identifying the best spot for a charging station. Depending on how many chargers and guests you’re expecting, you might need more than one wall outlet.

Consider placing the charging station slightly out of the way, like on a console table or shelf in a side hall away from the living room or kitchen. This way, you and your guests can walk around the house without it being in the way. A kitchen benchtop might also be another good idea, depending on whether you have space with all the entertaining you’ll be doing.

Once you have a spot, grab a couple of surge protectors or power strips—bonus points if they have USB ports, like this Anker surge protector. Next, gather all the phone chargers and USB-C cables you have lying around your house. Don’t forget to include a few Lightning cables or adapters, too, as some of your guests likely don’t have an iPhone with USB-C yet.

A couple of wireless and MagSafe chargers are also a good idea. Some guests may even have older devices with the aging micro USB attachment, so dig that out too. Even if you don’t have that many chargers, you can still set up a spot with power strips and simply ask your guests to bring their own or swap chargers themselves.

Just make sure nobody leaves with your cables!

By setting up a charging station, you might even trick guests into unplugging for a while. Plus, if your family is anything like mine, the kids will quickly occupy the charging station, so most adults will naturally steer clear unless they’re desperate for a battery boost.