Lately I haven't felt like decorating for Christmas. I have three little girls,so decorating is a must, but I just don't feel like lugging up all those boxes from the basement. Then sorting through what we'll put out this year, what we don't have room for, what is broken and doesn't work. In addition to the other kazillion things going on during holiday time, I find no joy in decorating the house. One of my (way too many) resolutions this year is to make Christmas more joyful (yes, I'm planning waaaay ahead). I plan to start making and buying gifts earlier in order to focus on baking and decorating in December. I'm scaling back Thanksgiving (at least in part because my oldest has a birthday right after that often gets overshadowed by the stress of the holidays). I want to take the stress (or at least some of it) out! So, baby steps.
Today I took down the Christmas decorations and went through every item in every box. I started with 5 large boxes (I actually gave one box of stuff away last year to my sister, so I originally had 6!) I wanted to reduce to 3. I should say here that it is important to me that the children find Christmas and decorating to be fun and magical, so I didn't want to be too severe in my purging.
To Keep:
~ Items of sentimental value Careful here: many, many of my Christmas items are from family members. I kept the ones that held special meaning or gave me a stomachache to think of letting go. For example, if one of those TV hosts were here to help me clean & they tried to put the item in the giveaway box, would I embarrass myself by wrenching it from their hands? If yes, it's a keep ;)
~ Items that the kids find magical: snow globes & music boxes, pixie elves & Santas that look like Dumbledore
~ Most tree ornaments and wreath decorations
~ The 4 Christmas village houses we have. The kids love them. We have 4. Not too many, not too few, just right :)
~ Nativity scenes (sigh). I have 2. Both have sentimental value. They take up a lot of space. But I just. can't. let. them. go.
To Give Away:
~ Decorations that worked at previous homes but not this one (example: we had an open staircase and outdoor outlets at a previous home. Not here.)
~ Decorations given to me en masse when someone else purged
~ Items that I got on clearance because they were a "good deal" but I never really use
~ Crafting supplies that have gone unused for years & years & years
~ Any item that sits on a shelf or mantle & doesn't have sentimental or magical value (see "To Keep" above)
To Reuse Elsewhere:
~ Small cardboard boxes. To make more room inside the large plastic boxes all items are now wrapped in newspaper, paper towel, bubble wrap, etc and put directly into the large box, no more small boxes in large boxes
To Throw Away:
~ Anything broken or not working.
I feel like I really started the New Year off on the right foot! Do you have any guidelines you use when purging sentimental items?
Friday, January 22, 2010 at 10:20AM
