Organizing For a Stress-free Holiday: Decorating Your Home
How can you prevent feeling wiped out during the holidays? Do less and enjoy more. Rather than trying to do it all, do what’s most valuable and meaningful to you and your family.
When we leaf through the glossy magazine spreads of homes decked out for the holidays, it’s easy to feel the pressure to compete. Reality check: Those homes are staged by a large staff of talented professionals. They are not designed to be live in, they are created to be photographed. It’s not realistic to expect our homes to look like the pages of magazines.
Rather than aiming for a picture perfect display, go for a meaningful holiday season instead. Ask your family members which traditions are most important to them, and determine what you can let go of. For example, what will happen if this year, you don’t decorate every surface in your home? What if you only choose the one or two rooms you spend the most time in, and take your time decorating them? I’ve taken to doing this over the last few years, and I’m amazed at the drop in my stress level, not to mention how much more pleasure I get out of decorating. Now I am working towards using more festive items that don’t have to be packed away after the holidays: fresh wreath, candles, fruit in bowls, and fresh flowers. I’m doing this because, as organized as I am, I still don’t enjoy packing away the holiday decorations.
This holiday season, what will you do less of so that you can get more enjoyment?
When we moved from our first apartment to our house, we bought a huge tree to replace the little table-top one I’d been using for ages.
(Yes, I know some people think fake trees are tacky, but I can’t justify cutting down a living tree just to decorate my living room.)
I now wish we hadn’t bothered. It takes a whole afternoon to assemble and decorate that big tree, yet we hardly spend any time in the front room. I’m considering getting a little one again and putting it in the back family room, where we can actually enjoy it all season. A smaller tree takes much less time to assemble, and will still give me room to hang my truly precious heirloom and handmade ornaments.
I think that’s a great idea Kristen. We used to keep our tree in the front room too, because it looked so nice in the window from the outside of our house. Now we keep it in the family room, where we spend most of our time. That makes it well worth the effort. I find that assembling it and putting the lights on the day before we decorate makes it less overwhelming and more fun. My girls usually help with the decorating, whereas before, they would get bored by the time the tree was assembled and the lights strung.
I like the concept of not decorating every room and every surface. Other than changing out some pillow covers, I didn’t even really do any autumn decorating this year.
Instead, I’ve been working on weeding out unnecessary items from our home. It’s amazing how many hundreds of items I’ve removed! Our home is feeling lighter….and so am I. I love putting what I’ve learned from you into practice.
As far as holiday decorating, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing this year. Definitely a simplified version!
Amy
Kristen – just a thought about your tree. If it comes in 3 pieces, you could always opt to leave off the bottom layer. When we lived in a 600 sq. ft. house, we didn’t have the space (width or height) for the entire tree, so we just used the top 2 layers. It worked perfectly!
I have just been in hospital for a week and will probably be having surgery the beginning of January. I think I will be more selective this year in what I put out because I don’t need the stress before surgery to have so much to put away. I also don’t want to be looking at holiday decorations until I recover from surgery.
Happy Holidays!
I have over 15 Rubbermaid boxes full of decorations. I never use all the decorations, and they are taking up valuable space in my garage and attic. This year, after I decorate my house, I’m going to carefully scrutinize what I’m not using, and donate to my local thrift shop before Christmas. Then I’ll have less stuff to deal with, and someone else can use what I’ve donated!
Over the years I have found that how you pack things up after the holiday helps in the decorating process. I have several boxes – each with like items (kitchen decor, ornaments, stockings, music). They are all clear, but I also label them so when I begin decorating I can start with one room and put things out gradually as time permits. I take my time packing things up every year, but it really helps.
Great post. Christmas is so close and I haven’t done my shopping yet. I still need to buy my cousin some lord of the rings toys. You can find a lot of great deals at Amazon.