Yvonne Glasgow
It’s that time of year where many people put away the turkey roaster and pull down the boxes of Christmas lights and ornaments. Believe it or not, now is the best time to declutter your holiday decorations—not at the end of the season.
No, seriously. This is the best time to do it. At the end of the holiday season, nobody wants to sit there and sort through decorations they just want to jam them back into storage. Now is the perfect time to sort, purge, and then decorate with the items you actually love. Not only will your favorite items end up on the mantle, on the tree, or hung on your front door, but cleanup at the end of the season will be so much easier.
Give Your Adult Children Their Childhood Ornaments
If you have adult children with families of their own, pass on their childhood ornaments to them. Even if they don’t have kids of their own, they’ll enjoy reminiscing each year as they hang all of those ornaments on the tree in their own home.
This also cuts down on how many decorations you need to store each year. You can focus on a more minimalistic tree design, or you can buy new ornaments.
Donate Any Decorations You No Longer Need
Tastes change, and you may no longer like some of the holiday decorations in your collection. Why hold onto them? Pre-holiday is the perfect time to donate the ornaments and decorations you no longer want. The thrift store will readily get them on the shelves so they can find new homes.
Any decorations you dread putting out or those you keep packed up each year can go in a donation box. If you have more ornaments than you have room on your tree for, weed out some of them.
Toss Broken and Damaged Items
As you’re putting up your decorations, when you find items that are broken or scratched, consider whether they’re repairable or ready for the trash. Can that Santa statue be glued back together and still look good? Can you paint the scratches on your favorite ornament?
Before you decide to keep any of your decorations as fix-it projects, be sure to consider whether or not you have the time to do it. If you’re not going to get it ready to decorate with it this holiday season, just toss it.
It might feel kind of Grinchy to be purging holiday decorations and ornaments, but it’s all too easy to end up with an attic filled with boxes and boxes of stuff that accumulates over the years. Just think how nice it will feel to put all your decorations away at the end of the season without all the residual clutter!
