If you’re anything like me, you love spending much of your brain power thinking of ways to organize. It’s truly one of my favorite pastimes.
This Christmas, I wanted to tackle our Christmas decorations again. Last year, we did an initial edit and purge of all of my mom’s decorations and we donated quite a bit. This year, I wanted to approach decorating even more thoughtfully and with the intention of creating beautiful order for our Christmas storage for the rest of the year.
Because order is beautiful, is it not? It’s also one of those things that bring me small joys and pleasure in this life. The older I get, the more I understand how valuable the small joys and pleasures really are.
So here we go! Here are six ways to organize your Christmas stuff during the season:
Unpack slowly and with delight.
Unwrapping my collection of ornaments is like a pre-Christmas every year. Memories flood back to my mind and nostalgia takes its warm hold.
Set aside anything that’s not “sparking joy.”
Picking up the old Marie Kondo philosophy, now’s a great time to make decisions about what you love and what’s lost its sparkle. If you’re not ready right then and there to completely remove it from your life, set it aside and revisit after the holidays.
Have the mindset of gifting someone else with something that no longer serves you.
Donating Christmas decor that no longer fits you can be cathartic and a gentle practice for the season, too. You can think of it as a way to serve others during the season by letting go of what’s not serving you anymore and gifting it to someone who would love it next.
Designate dedicated storage bins and boxes.
I have a smattering of bins in red and green for my Christmas stuff. We’ve also repurposed old popcorn tins for storing ornaments throughout the year, which then turn into decor themselves at Christmas time. Save cardboard from the packages arriving daily and cut into strips to make little cubbies to hold ornaments snuggly in a box if the budget doesn’t allow for special plastic bins. And use these singlenesting inventory sheets so you know what’s in each bin and box!
Clean up the storage spaces in your home.
Now’s a great time to reorg that spot in your home where you store all the Christmas decor. It’s probably empty, so it’s easier to assess the space and do a quick vacuum or dust before throwing the unsightly bins and boxes back in.
Keep tissue paper from gifts.
Why not reuse the used tissue paper from the gifts both given and received? When the time comes to pack everything away again until next year, use the tissue paper to protect your treasured decor and ornaments so that when next year’s unwrapping comes around, you can bask in the glow of nostalgia and cherished memories again!
If you’re craving some gentle, cozy comfort during any season, subscribe to Singlenesting Letters over on Substack! Each Saturday morning I send a little note from my home to yours to help you ease into your weekend.
Until next time!
