The Annual Christmas Declutter

Simplify!

Our Goal

A simple and beautiful house

that the Lord can use as a peaceful haven

for my family and others.

Click here to find out why/how I started!

Well, Christmas is over, and it's time to put the decorations away.  Being Mrs. Practical, and having guys who are not into decorating, I don't have many Christmas decorations to box and store.  Also, I've already blogged about decluttering Christmas decorations a few years ago, so you may refer to that post for more details.  In that blog post, I shared how I got down from five boxes of Christmas decorations to four.  In my photo below, you can see that I'm back up to five.  This is only because last year, I was adventurous and decided to make tabletop Christmas trees with some wired garland that mysteriously appeared at my front door.

Also, I shared in that old blog post about how I labeled the individual ornament boxes with the ornaments stored in each one.  That is due to my excessive list-making urge.  My goal this year and beyond, however, is to simplify.  So the individual ornament labels are now gone.  Here we go with the details...

Once Joseph--sweet young man that he is--helped remove all the ornaments from our tree, and once I had everything spread all over the floor (grouping like ornaments together--I have a few "sets" of glitter snowflakes), I took inventory, same as two years ago.

As you may know, I collect snowflake ornaments; since the ornaments fall into pretty much two categories (snowflakes and other, lol), I don't feel the need to label the individual ornament boxes anymore.  Away with those labels!!

I sorted through my non-snowflake ornaments, setting aside most of them (the two shoe boxes below).  I also put aside those red ribbon bows, which I've hung along our front porch railing for several years, but not for the past two years.  They were a little smashed and old looking.  Plus who wants to go out in the cold to tie decorations on the porch?  Not me.

Side note--don't you just love that Hot Wheels shoe box in the above photo?  My youngest guy is 18, so you know that box has been around for a loooong time!  Okay, back to decluttering.

Even though the individual ornament boxes are no longer labeled, I wanted to update the labels on the (now) four large 44-quart Rubbermaid boxes.  So, I removed all labels everywhere and went to work.  First, I sorted all the decorations into the four boxes, below.

You may see two tree skirts in the two boxes on the right.  I use the one in the far right box, and the other one--well, it was made by my mom (both of them were), and I'm keeping it for one of my guys.  If they don't want it, out the door it goes.  It's just one item, it fits in the box with room to spare, and I'm not letting go of it yet--so there.  Don't bug me about it.  :)

I use Microsoft Word to create single-cell charts, make the border a nice wide one so I have something to cut out, and I use a font called Nickolodeon, which is on every label in my entire house.  Keepin' it uniform and all, folks!  I label the front side with the word Christmas, and the back side with what's actually in the box, so that I know I can fit everything in the boxes next year.

These boxes are stored in our basement, which needs a lot of decluttering again.  I'll be down there soon when the urge overtakes me!


Back to life,
Christine

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