goodbye Christmas clutter...hello clean slate!

I love Christmas. I really do! But I also love when everything is all put away from the Christmas craziness and my house looks brand new again! It's amazing how much the Christmas decor also adds to the clutter of the house. Don't get me wrong, I love the festivity of it all, but I also like a clean slate. Which brings me to...Day 1 is here (well, technically it was here...I'm just a little behind on blogging about it). Ask Anna asked US to take care of that ready to be put away Christmas decor and say goodbye until next year. And that I did! I will confess the tree is still up, but there aren't any ornaments on it. Does that count? We're just waiting for a good time to actually get it out of the house - dead pine needles and all. Our last couple of nights have been a little busy.

I am big into bins, totes, containers, you name it...if it organizes, I'm into it. And I store all of my Christmas stuff into bins and bins and bins. I haven't crossed over to the "other side" in going all green and red for my Christmas decor (but oh how tempting that is!!). I just can't justify forking over the money when we have bins that work just fine (even if they are blue and purple).

Here are my lovely bins in all their massive glory. I think I might have acquired maybe one (dare I say two?) more bins since I last blogged about my Christmas storage 2 years ago.


But back to THIS YEAR...

The best thing for me to do when putting away my Christmas decor is to gather it all up in one location. I just walk around the house and grab this, that, and the other and bring it all to one big pile. This way the kids can help (with the unbreakables) and I can survey the amount of Christmas stuff I own.


One of the tasks the kids had this year was to take their own ornaments off the tree and place them each in a pile (oops...no picture - just visualize what that would look like!) Since they were born, each of the kids have had their own ornament box, so that when it comes time for another year of decorating the tree, they get to pull their own ornaments out and oooh and aaah over them (like this year!!)


Our misc. family and snowflake ornaments get stored away in this nifty little container that locks together, but there are individual trays. How cool is this?! Can't remember when I got it, but I love it!


A couple of years ago I found this ornament box in the AFTER CHRISTMAS CLEARANCE!! How there was one left and I got it...I still don't know. But I couldn't store my ornament bulbs without it (well, I suppose I could because pretty organizers aren't everything, but they sure are lovely to look at!)


While sorting out all of the Christmas items, I set aside anything that I haven't used in years and am willing to let go. I try to do this little by little every year because I always end up adding at least one or two things to my Christmas decor each year. My pile seemed a bit on the wimpy side this time around, but at least there are a few things headed to my garage sale bin!


And a bonus tip is to set aside a box with any little goodies that you plan to give for next Christmas. I always seem to find a few cute things when I'm browsing the after-Christmas clearance to add to stockings or whatever it may be and it's nice to have a special place for them.


I usually take pictures of my Christmas decor, but this year I didn't - drats! But look at my lonely looking mantle with no stockings hung with care. On my list of projects (which, by the way thanks to Pinterest is getting extremely long!) is a mantle makeover.


Now before I move onto Valentine's Day decorations, Ask Anna encouraged us to do a major cleaning of our clean slate and although I haven't vacuumed up the pine needles yet (remember? I'm still waiting to remove that tree!) I did take the time to dust!

purge, declutter & simplify

I have been in a major mood to ORGANIZE these last few days (without much action, however)! I'm pretty sure it has everything to do with the fact that it's almost the New Year which always seems to bring a different level of motivation. And probably partly because I still have my Christmas decorations half up, half down which makes my house feel cluttered and I'm stuck in that in-between phase. I know how I want it to look...it's just a matter of the route I need to take to get there! I probably haven't done much about that urge to organize because I've been spending more time eye-ing all of the amazing inspiration on Pinterest than actually doing anything. Seriously, it's killing me! I am finding so many ideas and I'm just in L-O-V-E...simply in love with the possibilities of the organizing projects in my future.

However when I start this urge to organize that's really all I want to do, but I have to remember I have other responsibilities, too, and I can't let the organizing bug take over my daily routine. I have to fit it in my life when I can. So that's why I was excited to run across Ask Anna and her 14 Days to Get Clean & Organized challenge. It's just a little at a time and step by step I will conquer some organizing I want to get done without it taking over my life. Wanna join me?




One of my goals for the year 2012 is...

Purge, Declutter & Simplify!

I feel like I am an organized person and I don't have a ton of clutter, but it's a matter of making everything simpler and easier for me and my family to continue to stay organized after the re-arranging is done. That's why I was also excited to find The Simpler Life just in time for this New Year and new commitment. I downloaded Beth's 2012 Declutter Calendar and I look forward to taking many more baby steps on my way to simplify my home and get it in the shape I want it to be...and stay that way!

Happy New Year to each of you!!