You stand and gaze at the ocean of new things filling your home and shake your head. Despite the fact that you were determined to keep Christmas low key and commercial this year, the three gifts each and one group gift you got your children have morphed into around 30 gifts each as each relative stopped by with just a few gifts for each child. How are you supposed to organize all of the stuff filling your home? Here are a few tips that work for us:
- Ask children to sort through toys and clothing for things that they don’t want anymore. After getting so many new things, they’ll probably be willing to part with things they haven’t used in awhile. You can donate some of the items and take the others to your consignment shop.
- Set up a storage bin for each child so they can fill the bins with toys they don’t want to get rid of, but don’t plan to play with for awhile. You can stick the bins in storage, making room for their new toys.
- Set up bins for yourself, too. Label them with store, toss and donate. As you take down holiday decorations over the next week or so, put each decoration immediately into one of the bins. You can then go through the store bin and organize the decorations you are keeping into storage containers with like items. (If you’re an ornamentaholic like me, sorting the two thousand Shiny Brite ornaments you seem to have acquired into the right containers is essential for staying sane while putting decorations up the next year.)
- If you have a lot of decorations, but still plan to hit the after Christmas sales to stock up on new decorations for next year, consider deciding to donate or sell one old decoration for every new decoration you bring home.
Photo: SXC
Post from: Blisstree