Preparing your home for Christmas involves adding more “stuff” to the house. Whether this stuff is in the form of gifts received or decor added to your shelves, people can end up feeling overwhelmed with their clutter around the holidays. That’s why we have put this list together of expert tips on how to declutter before Christmas.
In this article, we will share the pro tips that will leave your home feeling refreshed, functional, and ready for the holidays. Keeping your home decluttered and free from stress is an absolute priority in anticipation of Christmas!
1. Put Away Items Seasonally
There are likely objects or possessions in your home that you don’t use in every season. While these items do not usually need to be donated or purged, they can take up unnecessary space in your home. Before Christmas as we are into summers, we may not need winter clothing and accessories, for example. This can add some easy items to your list to pack away for the summertime.
From room to room, go around your house with an empty laundry basket or a storage bin. If there are items in a given area that you don’t need in the summer season, it’s time to put them away. While you are doing this, you can also consider items that might not be seasonal but also don’t get a lot of use in your home. You may want to donate to those in need, discard or put them away.
By decluttering before Christmas, you’re allowing yourself and your home some space for new items making the way into your home during the holiday season.
Check out this blog on 10 questions to ask yourself when decluttering.
2. Cut Down on Holiday Decor
One of the most overwhelming aspects of decorating for the holidays is the introduction of so many belongings that we see just once a year. If you’ve been decorating for Christmas for a while, you know that you tend to hold onto decor that is sentimental in nature. You might even be keeping things that are no longer functional or have a space in your home during the holidays.
Before bringing in new decorations for Christmas, go through the decor items you already have. Setup a sorting area and spread them out. Broken decor, aged decor, and items that you no longer display each year needs to go away. I recommend having large boxes and labelling them: DISCARD, DONATE, GIVE AWAY TO FAMILY, KEEP.
If certain items are sentimental but don’t get used in your home, you might consider gifting them to another family member. Items that are broken should be set aside to be repaired or disposed of as they are no longer serving you. Those items that you haven’t touched in two years should be heavily considered as discard or donate.
3. Organise Spaces That Are Prone to Clutter
One of the downfalls of decluttering before the holidays is that your expectations for decluttering your home may be larger than your capabilities. The holidays are stressful! Adding a home decluttering project to your plate can exacerbate this. If you are already feeling overwhelmed, it might be easiest to start with the spaces in your home that need the most attention.
For some, these areas might be obvious. If your dining room table is where mess tends to congregate, tackle it first. Otherwise, we find that many people tend to hoard belongings in their linen cupboards and their kitchen cabinets.
In the linen cupboard, you may find an excess of old blankets, old towels, and belongings you hoped to forget about. In the kitchen, you might find old dishware that you no longer keep around, pans that you hate but keep as extras, and more. These items make for easy but impactful declutter spots.
Divide your home into sections and prioritise what area you would be focusing on first. Prioritising and knowing where to focus will give you a starting point. Take it step-by-step from there. Remember! Don’t overwhelm yourself, start small and focus on one area at one time.
4. Consider Investing in Storage Solutions
Homes that lack adequate storage have an easier time collecting clutter. Without some innovative thinking or additional storage options, you might find yourself cleaning up the same items over and over. It can be extremely frustrating to see the same locations in your home cluttered with belongings.
Investing in new shelves, storage furniture, organisational baskets, or bins will be helpful if you are in this situation. We believe that you can’t functionally organise without some way to organise and store your belongings. Everything in your home should have a place for your home to be functional.
Function in a home helps to alleviate stress brought on from clutter and frequency of cleaning. Once each belonging has a dedicated space, you will find that decluttering simplifies itself. Your cleaning sprees will be far easier, and your home will be able to do more for you with the additional storage space for your items.
Do you know that when you book an organising session with Ducks in a Row, you can opt for our shopping service where we take into consideration your personal style & budget to develop a shopping list of storage solutions for your space. Once approved, we complete all the shopping prior to our session and deliver the items to your home ready to organise and style your home.
Conclusion
To conclude, decluttering your home can feel like a tall task, but it doesn’t have to be. You will find it much easier to commit time to this task by breaking it down into smaller subsections and addressing them individually.
We hope that you can use these expert tips for decluttering your home to your advantage in anticipation of the holidays. Once you have decluttered your home, you can happily decorate for the holidays and enjoy the Christmas season!
If you are struggling to create functionality and flow within your home, feel free to fill out our Enquiry Form, so we can help guide you through how to use each space to its full potential.
At Ducks in a Row, we believe in explaining to our clients how decluttering works before starting the process. It is important for us to reinforce that our role as an organiser is not to tell you what to keep and what to throw away, but instead to assist and guide you by asking questions to help you make an informed decision for yourself.
Are you ready to get your ducks in a row?
Follow me on Instagram for more home organisation tips, advice, and inspiration!
