House of Order- Holiday Decorations

What's in your attic??

You may be surprised how EASY it is to clean out crap.

Because really, it's not that hard to tell you will NEVER wear that again... and neither will your kids.

Hard things for me to sort are SENTIMENTAL things. 

I'm very sentimental.

But boxes of decorations and clothes and books and junk-- easy to sort.

Why haven't I done this sooner?

Yesterday I did HOLIDAY DECORATIONS.

I was dreading this.

How am I getting stuff done when my husband is out of town and my kids are out of school?

It's really not that bad.

I spend the morning doing chores, dressing and feeding.

Then I encourage them to play while I begin my project.

In my LIVING ROOM.

They play till lunch- by which time I'm a bit frustrated with my MESS.

I feed, put the little girls down for naps and send the big kids outside.

Yes, they see "treasures" in every box I open.

Yes, they take the Halloween costumes and wear them and bring them all around the house.

But, it's not too bad.  Because, my house is clean to begin with, and I leave some room in my boxes.

So, at night when I'm putting them to bed and I find Casper's mask, I just slip it into my Halloween box.

None of my boxes are back up in my attic yet... I'm leaving that for the professor to do.

Honestly, NOTHING is cleaned up till 9pm when my kids are in bed.

The worst part is taking my pile of trash and sticking it out back, and bringing my pile of Goodwill stuff to my car... because by the end of the night I'm exhausted.

But, the best part is drinking hot chocolate on my couch at night, looking at my SUPER organized attic boxes and knowing this is something I have wanted to do for YEARS and have NEVER done.

It feels good.

Tips for Packing HOLIDAY DECORATIONS

1. Gather them-- I found every holiday thing I had.  Although I am sort of organized, I had holiday stuff in my attic, on a shelf in my garage and in a basket in my laundry room.  Sometimes I find the lone turkey that I missed when I cleaned up my decorations.  I just stick it in a basket in my laundry room of "stuff to put in the attic".  I also found a bag of Easter decoration in my laundry area that I bought at 90% clearance and hadn't put with my Easter stuff.  Really, this time, I think i've gotten everything.  I also started a box of House Decorations-- this is for stuff that doesn't fit with a holiday but that I seem to rotate.  I have a shelf for home decorations in my garage-- but when I went through holiday decorations, I found more house decorations.  So, I just put them in a basket to deal with later.

2. Decide on BOXES-- Honestly, this is my hard part.  I have used big, rectangle, clear, Sterilite boxes for my holiday decorations.  But, stuff doesn't always seem to fit right.  IF I had money, I believe I would have made ten trips to the store today to find the 'PERFECT' storage solutions.  Instead, I used my brain and made what I had work.  Ughh.  Really, it was hard for me.  I decided to keep the big rectangle boxes and combine holidays.

3.  WHAT to keep-- Some things are obvious.  Don't keep broken things.  Don't keep things you didn't put out last year.  Don't keep things you don't like.  And sometimes, don't keep things you kind of like but are hard to store.  Some things are harder.  For me, Halloween costumes were the hardest.  Because I'm sentimental.  And, I love that my kids love dress-up.  We have an overflowing dress up box of stuff they wear daily.  And we had 2 boxes of Halloween costumes- that I can never find when I'm looking for new Halloween costumes any way.  I always recreate- so why do I save?  Because I'm sentimental.  I decided to keep only handmade costumes... and unique things, like masks and witch socks, that were easy to store.  Two boxes down to one. 

4.  Layer-  My favorite solution of my day, was my Valentines/4th of July box.  I didn't have enough decorations to fill a huge box with either of these holidays.  And, I was hesitant to combine them in one big, messy box.  And, I had a few bigger wreaths and decorations that I couldn't fit.

My solution-- I used smaller Tupperware for each holiday... and I had the wreaths standing on the side.

Like this...

Now, I can just pull out the smaller Tupperware for Valentine's day, and not have to sort through the 4th of July stuff.  And, all my holiday decorations are in the same sized Tupperware for easy stacking and packing.

5. Wreaths-- I love to change out my wreaths for the seasons.  I had a couple square Sterilite boxes that i hate for other things because they are too big.  But, they worked PERFECT for my smaller Christmas wreaths.  I still have a few larger wreaths that I have to find a solution for.  In the past, I have just used black trash bags-- but I kind of hate this option.  Any ideas?

 6. Duh-- I know these are dumb things to write down, but I realized them while I was packing.  First, I like to use the edges for cute things.  If you have a choice, put the eggs or the turkey facing out so your boxes look festive. 

Second, use the very top of your boxes.  Sometimes I thought big things wouldn't fit.  But, when I tried them on the very top-- Whaaah Laaah!  So, don't forget the top is the biggest spot.

7. Trash-- Honestly, I am always surprised at how much trash I find when I'm sorting.  Broken decorations that i couldn't bear to throw away so I just packed them... old Halloween costumes-- like a HUGE turkey tail made out of cardboard, that I know we will never use again.  Old coloring books that my mom saved for my kids-- the pages are yellowed and falling apart.  Why do I have these things?  Guess what?  I DON'T HAVE THEM ANYMORE.  Oh no, my house is a house of order.  NO TRASH is filling up my storage areas.  I feel ten pounds lighter.

Today, I am working with my kids in the morning.

Sending them to the park (to go fishing) with their dad.
Organizing all my KID CLOTHES.
And inviting friends over for the afternoon, while I sort.
Yes, friends and neighbors see my piles.
But I'm OK with that.
My rule is- come over ONCE when my house is CLEAN.
After that, I don't care what mess you see.
Can I tell you how excited I am to organize all the KID CLOTHES in my whole house/attic?
I'm SO excited.