January 17 2019

Putting Away the Holiday

Now don’t laugh, but we still have our Christmas tree up and we are even “those people”. Yep, “those people” who not only haven’t taken down their holiday decorations, but are also still lighting them up for all the world to see well after the middle of January.

Why are they still up? Because we are too busy or too lazy perhaps to take them down and put them away. At this point, the closest we’ve gotten is Hubby bringing the tubs for the decorations down from the attic. I thought I might get ambitious and put a tub full away each night this week, then we could take down the tree over the weekend.

It just hasn’t happened. Between working and the commute to and from work, dealing with snow last weekend, and trying to get dinner on the table and have some time to myself each evening, it just hasn’t happened. So what is my plan since the last one didn’t work out too well? More snow. We are supposed to get more snow this weekend again and I get to work from home on Monday since it’s a holiday. I figure since I won’t have to commute, I can use the extra hour to work on packing away the holiday.

What I don’t plan to pack away again is the holiday mugs that have been packed away for several years to the point that we forgot we had them. Only a couple are even meaningful to us. We might keep those couple and donate the rest to charity.

I want to number or label the tubs so I can make inventory lists for them to tell me exactly which tub each item is in, but honestly that likely will not happen this year.  I did pull a few things that we weren’t using this year and didn’t need to keep out to donate as we were going through the decorations deciding what needed to come out and be put to use and what could go. I think evaluating each item when you are getting stuff out or putting it back is a good plan.

Most of our ornaments, ok probably only about half of them, get packed away in their original boxes each year as a way to protect them from dust and debris, then those little individual boxes are packed into a large plastic tub/tote.

While I’m thinking of it, my favorite thing about our Christmas tree every year is the rotating stand. I LOVE it because it allows us to fill the entire tree with ornaments and you can tell it’s moving even from out on the street and it is really a cool effect. Because it is always rotating, you get to watch the ornaments go by as it rotates. Now I’m sure at least one of you is thinking to yourself that it would never work because the tree lights would wind themselves around the base of the tree, but the manufacturers thought about that and the lights plug into the base that rotates so the lights rotate with the rest of the tree.

So, if, like us you still haven’t packed away the holiday, whichever one(s) you celebrate, let’s challenge ourselves to get it down before the month ends. Leave a comment below and let us know if you have finished putting it all away. Remember when you get busy, be kind to future you, declutter as you go.

Category: Organizing | 1 Comment on Putting Away the Holiday
November 15 2018

Holiday Organizing

Holiday Organizing

As we approach the holiday season, many of you will be decorating your homes for the holidays. Over the years, I have learned a thing or two about getting organized for the holidays.

Years ago, I got some green and red tubs to put away the decorations after the holidays were over so they would be easy to locate in the attic or basement. Before then, we used an assortment of cardboard boxes to store our decorations. The tubs were larger and had nice handles which made fewer trips up and down the attic or basement steps and the handles made them easier and safer to carry.

Believe it or not, we have a black and orange tub to store the fall and Halloween decorations and a pastel yellow tub to store spring and Easter decorations. Yep, these are obvious when stacked among other tubs and easy to find or send someone else to get.

This year as you get out your decorations think about those that you choose not to put out and consider WHY you aren’t using them this year. Maybe they just don’t suit your tastes or style of decorating anymore. Maybe they belong to your kids and you need to sort those into a tub for each of your children so they will have a tub of their own to start their decoration collection with when they move into a home of their own. We have a few ornaments that are very breakable family treasures that we rarely put on our tree because we don’t want to take a chance on breaking them. As I am writing this and thinking of those ornaments, it occurs to me that these will have no meaning to our kids because they were never a part of our holiday decorating. I am now asking myself what I am saving them for. This is the year we either use it or lose it. If it doesn’t fit neatly into the tubs we already have to store our decorations in, then we will need to declutter some things so we can keep others.

Another quick tip is to attach a list of what is in each box or at least label them (ornaments, garland, lights, nativity, etc.). You could use double-sided tape to attach a sheet protector and then slide the lists in and out as needed while keeping it clean, dry and protected.

We have done this every few years and we got to the point where we realized the ornaments our kids were getting each year were over-crowding our tubs and the kids needed their own, so I waited for the lovely red and green tubs to go on deeply discounted sale and bout one for each of them. Then we took a huge black permanent marker and wrote each kid’s name on the lid and tub their ornaments would now be stored in.

If that kid didn’t take the time to put their decorations on the tree then they didn’t get used. The kids were also in charge of taking their ornaments off the tree each year and putting them away in the boxes they came in to keep them nice. This is always something of a trip down memory lane as they remember the things that were going on in their lives during those years. Their great-grandmother and grandma each chose ornaments for each of them every year. The ornaments were usually Hallmark ornaments. Occasionally if we found an ornament that had particular meaning for one of them we would also get them an ornament. Because the kids were in charge of hanging their own ornaments each year, they remember them and will have those memories for the rest of their lives. I would tell the kids as they packed their ornaments away that first year that they should also put any ornament they personally made in their tubs and let me know if there was anything, in particular, they wanted to keep that had special meaning to them but didn’t specifically belong to them.

Last year, we never got around to putting the tree up and it was oddly sad not seeing it, but very nice not having to put it away either. It was the only year I can ever remember not having decorated the house for the holiday season.

Now we don’t get carried away, we usually just set up the artificial tree and decorate it, hang the stockings and set out some decorations on the mantel and tabletops in the living room. We don’t have tons of stuff and it can usually be put up or taken down in an afternoon or evening. I like the get it set up over Thanksgiving weekend and Hubby doesn’t like to have it taken down before the twelfth day of Christmas for some reason. I usually like it down sometime around new years, but I usually let him keep it up longer.

So when it comes to organizing your holiday decorations you need to set aside a time and add it to your calendar to do the decorating and un-decorating. You also need to make a list of things you will need like wrapping paper, tape, bows, gift boxes or whatever you use. Do you need to buy stamps to mail letters or cards? Is your address list current? Do you need to get updated addresses for that cousin that bought a house this year? Schedule in ten or fifteen minutes a day to do something to make this year’s holiday season go smoother. Do you have the recipes you will make gathered up? Have you been adding the non-perishable items to your shopping list each week so the grocery budget doesn’t explode the end of December? What are the things you can do ahead of time to save yourself the added stress later?

Do you know where you are going on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? What days do you and your family members have off work? Are there programs you need to attend? Add them all to your calendar. Do you need to make reservations for dinner somewhere? How about tickets to the show or event you want to attend? Do you plan to donate your time ringing a bell, wrapping gifts, shopping for those less fortunate, serving meals at a soup kitchen? Add it all to your calendar. It would be a shame to miss something you want to do because it wasn’t on your calendar and in the business of the season it slipped your mind.

If you take the time to make your lists and check them twice over the next week or two, you will be amazed at how much smoother everything goes and how much less stressed you feel and how much more enjoyable the season can be. You owe it to yourself to get organized for the holidays. Yes, YOU are worth it!

In case you missed these recent holiday related posts, be sure to take a minute to read them by clicking the links below.

Are the Holidays a Burden?
Saving for the Holidays

If you have been reading this blog very long it probably isn’t a surprise that I am pre-writing some of the November Thursday posts so I can focus on writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days (NaNoWriMo). Stay tuned and add yourself to the email list in the near the upper right of this page so you can be notified by email when I post something new and can read it right in your email if you choose.

Category: Family, Organizing, Planning | Comments Off on Holiday Organizing
November 8 2018

Saving for the Holidays

Today, I want to talk about saving money during the holidays. Some families are large and some are small. If you have a list a mile long of people you want/need to buy gifts for, you need a plan to make that work.

First, grab some paper and make a list of all the people you need to buy gifts for this year. Do you have a budget so you know how much you can spend on holiday-related things? If not, that’s fine for this year, but hopefully, you will have a better handle on it next year after you read this.

Next, you need to remember what the holiday season is all about. It doesn’t matter which holidays you celebrate most of us believe the season is about being thankful and not just about doing all the things and buying all the gifts. It’s not about the gifts or the decorations or the food, well, maybe the food. Just kidding. The holidays are a time to get together with friends and family and celebrate spending time together and being grateful for everything you have in your life, including those loved ones.

Set an amount that you will spend on each person that fits in the budget you have without going into debt. That may be $1 per person or $100 or anything in between or maybe you are independently wealthy and the sky is the limit. You know your finances and what you can afford without going into debt. If you budget is tight, maybe you give gifts by family group. Maybe you pull names and each person buys for one other person. Maybe you play a game often referred to as Dirty Santa or White Elephant. The point is if it is too much either cut the amount you spend on each person or cut the list down to the number of people you can afford or some other creative way to stay within your budget and not dread the credit card bills that will be coming in January if you use plastic to stick to someone else’s idea of what a gift needs to cost.

Perhaps you are great at baking and want to make trays of cookies to share with each family or a loaf of banana bread or even a fruitcake, though that wouldn’t be my first choice on either the giving or receiving-end of things. Maybe you could make coupons or gift certificates for something you can gift without cost (your time) for things like babysitting, back massages, manicures, oil changes, car washes, house cleaning, taking down holiday decorations, you get the idea. There are things YOU can do that someone on your gift list would really appreciate having done for them. Maybe it is one on one time with a niece or nephew, maybe it is helping grandma clean out the attic or garage. You could record yourself reading a child’s favorite book so they can hear it every night without their parents’ sanity on the line.

Like to encourage reading? Find the perfect magazine for the people on your list. The subscriptions can often be less than $20 a year and then the recipient has future issues to look forward to and something new to talk about when they see you again.

Maybe a young family is struggling and would really appreciate a family membership to the local zoo or children’s museum. Maybe a teen would like movie passes or fast food gift certificates. There are so many things you can make or do for others that requires little more than your time and attention.

Make memories, not messes. Before giving gifts, consider whether the person will want to find room to store the thing and dust the thing you gift them. Consider giving clutter-free gifts. Gift certificates and food gifts are great because they get used up and can be a great idea again next year. Ask for ideas if you aren’t sure what to give someone. Maybe they would rather you donate in their name to a favorite charity instead of giving them a new sweater or tie.

Whatever you end up giving this year, keep track of it and think about how the amount you spent fit into your financial means. Should you cut back next year? Could you afford to do more if you planned better? Total everything up, and I mean everything that isn’t a part of your regular monthly expenses. Special clothing for holiday photos, special food for holiday gatherings, baking supplies, office pitch-ins, gifts for co-workers, greeting cards, stationery, postage stamps, decorations, live garlands or trees that can’t be reused safely next year, seriously everything. How much did it cost you? Can you afford that amount? Now, when do you want to start shopping for everything next year? August, October, November? Doesn’t matter when; that is up to you. Just figure out how many months you have between January 1st and the time you want the money to be in place so you have it to shop with. If that is August 1st, then you have seven months to save. Divide your budget number by the number of months and make yourself save that amount in an account that you don’t touch except to buy holiday gifts. It is that simple.

If you want to get even more budget conscience, add in the amount you need to cover the cost of birthdays and other celebrations for the entire year. Take that new year-long total and divide by 11 because you will have the money saved a little early and if you save 1/11th each month for the entire year, you have a little extra padding in your budget for things you forgot to add in or to splurge a little on yourself.

Here are a few resources I’d like to recommend:
FlyLady’s Holiday Control Journal
FlyLady’s Holiday Cruising Missions 
FlyLady’s Holiday Cleanup Missions

If you have other ways of budgeting for the cost of holiday celebrations or inexpensive gift ideas, I’d love it if you shared them with all of us in the comments below.

If you have been reading this blog very long it probably isn’t a surprise that I am pre-writing the November Thursday posts so I can focus on writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days (NaNoWriMo). Stay tuned and add yourself to the email list in the near the upper right of this page so you can be notified by email when I post something new and can read it right in your email if you choose.

Category: Money Saving, Planning | 1 Comment on Saving for the Holidays
December 15 2016

Where is my Christmas Spirit?

I am normally very into Christmas. I used to enjoy the whole picking the perfect gift for each person on my list thing. But lately, my Christmas gift list just seems too long. I feel obligated to buy for everyone on the list and that turns it into a chore. The truth is, I rarely spend much time with any of the people on our gift list, so I don’t really know what the perfect gift for each of them would be any more. I’m not sure when this happened. Perhaps it was when the nieces and nephews began growing into adults and bringing dates to family gatherings. Then they get married or move in with their significant others. Sometime they married into ready-made families and the gift list grew exponentially. At any rate, it is somewhat overwhelming.
I love the way my sisters and I handle the holidays. We get together sometime near the holiday, well within a month of it usually. We each bring a wrapped gift valued at about ten dollars. The gift can be anything, but preferably some of them will be suitable for the men or teens and not just to one particular person. Sometimes we get a lot of gift cards, though they are wrapped creatively so it isn’t always obvious that is what is inside the wrapping. 
Once everyone is gathered in the designated location and the wrapped gifts are on the table, someone figures out how many of us there are and makes little slips of paper with that many numbers and folds each number up so they all look the same and puts them into a bowl. Someone volunteers to go around and have everyone select a folded slip of paper. The person who draws number one goes first. Number one gets to pick from all the wrapped gifts and open the gift they choose. They hold it up and show everyone. Number two then has the option to choose a wrapped gift from the table or take the gift from number one. This goes on until everyone has had a turn. When the numbers have all had their turn, anyone who had a gift taken from them gets to pick another one from the table and open it. If this happened a lot, they re-pick in the same order they picked in the first time around. When everyone has an unwrapped gift and the table is empty, number one gets the chance to take the gift from anyone else, and that person essentially ends up trading gifts with number one. After that is all over usually folks start asking others if they want to trade gifts. 
Sometimes the gifts are great, other times the gift is destined to become a white elephant gift offering or go into the donation bag. It doesn’t take hours like it does when a big family gets gifts for each and every other member and the group must sit around taking turns opening gifts so everyone can see every gift each person received. The point is spending time together and having fun, our little “Dirty Santa” game is how we have turned the holiday and a bunch of family members on very tight budgets into a fun and memorable experience. Sometimes, we learn a lot about each other by seeing what sort of gift each person contributes to the game. Some choose to bring a gift they would love to go home with themselves, sometimes it is more of a gag gift. Sometimes it is something edible like candy and the person opens it and passes it around to share with the group. We used to have separate groups for the kids and adults. Then the kids started growing to adulthood and wanted to be in the grown up group. We have a lot of fun and everyone seems to be relieved that they only need to come up with one gift per person in their own family unit. Sometimes, the person gets a great deal on a gift worth ten dollars and other times the person spends ten dollars on a gift worth much more. It doesn’t really matter. The gifts are just a fun way to get every one together in the same room to spend time together. 
I sometimes wish we could do this for the other side of the family too. There are just so many people and many of them are on tight budgets too. There are a few options, we can give a family gift, but that is difficult too as the kids are getting older. My family used to draw names about a month before the holiday, this used to be easy if we were all together for the Thanksgiving holiday as we could draw names then. We gave this up eventually because it didn’t really allow us to invite others to join us. I rarely managed to draw the name of the person I had found the perfect gift for, so that was a bit of a downer. 
All of this is to say that this year for whatever reason, I am having trouble getting into the Christmas mood. It has helped some to listen to Christmas music. It also helps when hubby is willing to help with the shopping and not just leave it all up to me to figure out. Of course it is too soon to talk about what sorts of gifts we chose for the various family members. You never know who might actually be reading this blog post. I keep thinking that eventually the mood will hit me and hopefully when it does it won’t be after the holiday season has ended and the new year has descended upon us.
So, what family holiday traditions do you have? Are you in the Christmas mood this year? Do you have any advice to share on what a body can do to enjoy the holiday season more and dread the gift shopping less? Any hints you can gift would be greatly appreciated.
Happy Holidays to you and yours!
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