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- I’m a professional declutterer and work with clients in helping them get rid of things.
- Regardless of how hard you go with your holiday decorations, chances are you have too much.
- Declutter when you are putting things up instead of taking them down.
The holiday marathon is nearly upon us, and for some, it requires a lot of bling.
Maybe you’re a seasonal decorator and are hunting down gourds and pussy willows, or you might just do the bare minimum. Whatever your decorating methodology, chances are you’ve got bins and bins of trinkets that never make it to the mantlepiece, the dining table, or the front yard.
At their best, holiday decorations conjure warm images of childhood. Unfortunately, they can also lead to swearing while trying to disentangle five separate strings of lights that have become irretrievably woven together.
Here are a few tips to keep your trimmings and trappings decluttered and organized.
Declutter when you’re putting things up, not when you’re taking them down
This advice may seem obvious, but an awful lot of you are ignoring it.
If you wait until Christmas, Passover, or Arbor Day is over, you’ll be so done with the holiday that you’ll just throw everything back in the box and shut the lid.
Instead, check each item as you unpack it. Get rid of anything that’s broken or unattractive, and avoid the trap of keeping extras “just in case.”
If you’re decorating for Christmas, for example, take the time to determine which lights work and which do not. If you’ve still got access to those ridiculously tiny fuses, you can try to resuscitate a dying string, but if you can’t get it to work now, you never will. Better to cut your losses and toss them. The same goes for the extra ornaments, long-abandoned tinsel, and those ugly candlesticks someone gave you years ago.
Hate it? Get rid of it
Remember, if you don’t like something, you don’t have to own it. I don’t care if the Queen of England gave you that cartoon reindeer tea towel; if you think it’s ugly, you get to dispose of it. This can be tricky with holiday stuff; some of it carries a lot of sentimental energy, especially if it’s been handed down from lost relatives.
If you have family heirlooms that don’t match your general decorating scheme, consider creating a special display. You can enjoy them without making them the centerpiece of the holiday.
Refusing to either use or dispose of things hidden away in boxes isn’t really honoring them. It’s actually more like a hostage situation. You are a fully-fledged human, and you get to decide what’s important to you. Just because your great-aunt used those jewel-encrusted tongs to put sugar in her tea every Groundhog Day does not mean you have to put them on your table every year. Send them off to the thrift store; someone will be thrilled to find them.
A little organization goes a long way
You know that feeling when Halloween is over, and you find that stash of black cat tea lights you just knew you hadn’t thrown away? This would not happen if you kept all your décor together.
Get yourself some nice roomy bins — plastic is OK, as is cardboard — and put all the items associated with a specific holiday in one place and then label it. If you’re a varsity-level decorator, color code your bins so it’s easy to see which one holds the decorations for a particular holiday. If the collection won’t fit in a single receptacle, get another. Don’t cram it in or assume you’ll remember where you put the overflow.
If there are strings of lights involved, wrap each one around a piece of cardboard when it’s time to put it away. Use tissue paper to wrap delicate items. If any of your holiday treasures are beloved heirlooms, make a list and write down who and where they came from. Keep the list with the decorations so any future unboxers will have that information.
Remember, holidays are supposed to be fun. You can avoid some of the less enjoyable parts of a potentially hectic time by paring down your collection of decorations to the ones you really love. This year, take a little extra time to curate and organize as you’re preparing to spruce up the house; your future self will thank you.
