Do you LOVE Christmas like I do? Are you dying to decorate the day after Thanksgiving (or before) and can’t wait to pull out all your Christmas decorations but always need help because there is WAY too much and it is SO heavy?

What if you found a way to make decorating, storing and organizing those decorations easier?

If you’re anything like me, you adore Christmas but don’t adore the process of…

1) Locating your Christmas decorations

2) Figuring out which bin holds what

3) Hoping and praying your ornaments and decorations are still intact…especially the irreplaceable handmade Santa bust passed down from the mother-in-law

4) Begging and pleading with the husband to get all the containers down from the shelves, attic or wherever they may be and all the way up the stairs to start the day-long (or possibly week long) decorating adventure!

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE decorating! Christmas is and always will be my favorite time of year – but this year as my husband, son and I hauled the heavy bins upstairs, I decided I needed to do something different. Something easier. I needed to do some Christmas purging.

Let me backtrack a little. The last few months for me have been strangely disorganized to say the least. With family, running a business and life in general going in many different directions, things got crazy. In an attempt to de-clutter my mind, I started purging my home, throwing away, giving away or donating half of what we own. I cleaned all closets, drawers, shelves, etc. You name it, I have gone through it, and it has felt great! I know where everything is and I even my family is starting to enjoy the “less is more feeling.” As I was trudging all the decorations up the stairs I couldn’t help but notice that “overwhelmed” feeling creeping back in, and I didn’t like it. So, like the rest of my home, I decided it was time to let go of some of the Christmas decor that no longer serves a purpose. I thought I would be very sentimental about letting certain items go, but honestly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought. My decorating this year has been SO MUCH FUN and SO MUCH EASIER!

I let go of the broken, faded or out dated.

My first step was to grab a large plastic bin and lay all my decorations out in my living room making it easy for me to see all I had.

I didn’t do this with the ornaments because honestly, I knew I would keep most of them for sentimental reasons (so many were handmade by kids or my husband and I as children). No, I don’t have that perfect magazine tree, but I love it! I also knew it would take forever to lay them all out so I just tossed broken/ugly ornaments as we decorated the tree.

After I laid the decorations out, I took a good look at each item and if it was broken anywhere, faded at all, or outdated, it went into the bin.

Nutcracker missing his mouth…broken…into the bin.

Hello, table cloth I’ve had for over 15 years. Pretty sure I got it when I first moved out on my own. Ugly, faded and outdated…into the bin.

Other items placed in the bin:

• Anything purchased at a discount dollar store
• Broken twinkle lights (I promise you it is WAY easier to go buy a new strand then to find the broken one).
• Anything inflatable for the front yard. Sorry frosty.
• Anything plastic and lights up for the front yard. Rudolf had to go.
• Any plastic bowl or Christmas tin I swear I’ll use but never have
• Anything that is stuffed and/or sings annoying renditions of Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer
• Anything crocheted or knitted in the 70’s, 80’s or anything from the awesome yet retro 90’s!
• Tinsel. Enough said.

Next I purchased around 15 small and medium sized CLEAR plastic storage bins. I realized a major problem was not knowing what each bin contained, so I purchased clear containers, labeled them, and found a more accessible area in my storage room (making them easier to find next year). Since your decor is already up, now is a great time to purchase and label new bins – then in January, you can purge as you put them away!

Although I got rid of a bunch of Christmas items this year, I don’t miss them. I have realized how much I enjoy decorating with more earthy-type items such as branches from outside (spray paint them white!), boxwood wreaths, burlap and simply having items that are timeless, natural and classic. I love the look of my much more “organically decorated” Christmas and am excited to see how easy it is for me to decorate next year. I realize as the years continue, I will add more and will inevitably have to do this yet again, but that’s okay! My goal for today is to simply focus on being less stressed, have less clutter, and for it to be less about stuff and more about my faith, family, fellowship and fun this Christmas season!

Merry Christmas, friends!