Organizing for the holiday

December is here. Wow, the year has gone by so fast, it’s like I blinked and it’s over. It’s time to start decorating and getting ready for the Christmas holidays. Sadly for me, we will be out of town this Christmas, so my husband and I have decided it’s best if we don’t take the time necessary to actually put up a tree. I hate it, but it really does make better sense. Not only that, but for me to be climbing in and out of the attic for boxes upon boxes of decorations isn’t exactly the safest thing for someone who’s 7 months pregnant to be doing…

There’s one thing I’ve realized as I started to think about decorating this year. You know those boxes and boxes in our attic? They’re just that – boxes stacked on top of boxes – with no identification whatsoever. I wondered what happened to my usually organized self when we were packing those away. (Don’t laugh, I can be organized when I want to!)

It makes perfect sense to label them according to what’s in them, but did I take the time to do that? Not even a second thought. So now, instead of saying, “here honey, here’s the box of lights, and here’s the box of glass ornaments – be careful with those!” I spend my time opening a box, hmmmm, “this looks like the cloth angel we got from Mexico, and some of our ornaments, oh, and look, our mantle stocking hanger!”

With as hectic as Christmas can get, you think that one year it would occur to me to take the time to sort and organize a little bit better to save myself the headache next year (and years to come), but somehow I never seem to find the time. And at the end of the holiday, the ornaments and decorations go back in the boxes as half-hazardly as they came out.

I would say that this year I vow to do better, however since I have the excuse that we’re not even getting them out, well, I guess that’s out. And next year we’ll be dealing with a 10-month-old, so I really can’t predict what next Christmas will be like! (Although I have a feeling that there will be so much family around that I can probably hand over the baby for a few hours to organize…)

While nosing around online the other day, I found an awesome post that comes straight from a real Organizing Consultant. Although her main site is about everyday organization – and boy can I use some of that – this post is specifically about dealing with holiday storage. There are some really great and really easy advice on making your holiday storage, and your holiday decorating easier on everyone. Like I said earlier, with as crazy as the holidays can get, we could all probably use a little simplification in our schedules. She's also got a whole host of other holiday posts - from practical gifts (I really like the greeting card that you plant) to safe food preparation.

Check out her post for some tips like how to tag, sort and store your decorations. I never would have thought of the “tagging” idea, and considering I’ll probably start a collection of handmade ornaments courtesy of my soon-to-be little boy in the years to come, this is a great idea to help me remember when and how old, etc. when the gift was given.

Now I guess I need to check out the rest of the blog and maybe her web site as well to get the rest of my mess organized… *Sigh*

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Organizing for the holiday

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