Decluttering Christmas

The holidays are behind us and the decluttering is well underway. Each year, when it’s time to take down the decorations, we go to the basement and bring up all of the bins, put the decorations back in them and store them away.

But there is always one small issue: the bins aren’t empty when I put the decorations into them because I never use all of the decorations. It was time to let go of the decorations that we don’t love. And, honestly, if I loved them, they would have been on display this year.

It was time to declutter Christmas.

I opened up each bin and went through every item inside it one at a time:

Old stockings that we used to use, but we don’t anymore because we got new ones a few years back: donated

Ornaments that are broken: trashed

Ornaments that we don’t love: donated

Decorations and garlands that we don’t love: donated

Old Christmas cards that bring back wonderful memories: trashed

Does that sound painful? It wasn’t, actually. Because it’s just stuff. I sat down on the floor with my daughter with a garbage bag to my left and a donate box to my right. She participated with me and enjoyed eliminating stuff that doesn’t have value to us anymore.

I’ve always been very sentimental and getting rid of things that have strong memories has always been the hardest part of decluttering for me, but I need to live my life in the present moment and old Christmas cards just aren’t that precious to me.

The ornaments that my mother and daughter made for me were stored neatly away until next year along with our stockings. When we pull out our two full bins next year, every item will be special. We won’t have to sort through broken lights or random ornaments to get to the treasures.

They are all treasures, because we decluttered Christmas.

Photo by Benjamin Catapane on Unsplash