6 Tips For Staying Organized During and After The Holidays

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The last three months of the year end faster than they come, and before you know it, there’s a week left until Christmas and then it’s time to clean up the decor. It can be tricky keeping everything organized during the chaos that comes with the holidays. Here are a few ways to help you stay on top of everything so that the clean up is (somewhat!) minimal.      

1. Before things get too crazy in December, organize a gift wrap station in your home. Turn an old bar cart or bathroom organization cart into a place to store labels, ribbon, gift bags and paper, hot glue guns, and anything else you might need last minute. I even keep a few Christmas cards handy for those I forgot to send one to originally. (oops!)

2. When pulling out all your Christmas decor, be sure to analyze how much you really use. If you have some ornaments that you don’t hang on the tree each year because you’re not in love with them, it might be time to take a trip to the donation store. Take stock of what other decorations you don’t use regularly. If it’s not used during the holiday season, then it should probably get the boot. 

3. While I don’t love shopping the day after Christmas as I believe it is a great time to relax with family, some stores DO have pretty amazing sales on all their Christmas decor and organization. I usually hit up Target because their items can be up to 90% off! This is a great time to pick up gift wrap for next year, and even boxes to store your ornaments safely. I also try to use decor that can stack in itself like these nesting tins from IKEA (above). They stack inside each other and take up a small amount of room when it’s time to clean up! 

4. Speaking of storing ornaments! If you have a lot of them, it’s best to store them all together. Wrap them safely in bubble wrap or line a box with strips of cardboard to create small slots for each ornament. Spending a little extra work now will pay off next year when you bring them out and they’re not all broken and tangled! Here’s a great project involving storage bins and plastic cups! Talk about innovation!

5. I always try to keep my Christmas decor together when putting away in storage, but stuff inevitably just gets thrown into random boxes and I’m left searching for it the following holiday season. When it comes to packing up the tree, I just rip the branches off and throw them into the box. That’s not the most efficient way to do things! If you have the room to store an artificial tree while it’s still upright, take a look at these Christmas tree bags! My mother actually uses these on all of her trees. They keep the lights and majority of ornaments on, and just wrap it in a tree bag and carry the tree down to their basement. When it’s time to decorate for the next season, they just take the bags off and make a few minor adjustments and they’re done! How nice! 

6. With the new year, comes new goals. It’s easy to stick with them all of January, but I usually fall off the bandwagon by mid-February. Keep your goals fresh in your mind by having small reminders throughout the house. Here’s a simple DIY to help you frame your resolutions so you can be reminded all year long!