Clearing the Clutter After Christmas

CLEARING THE CLUTTER AFTER CHRISTMAS can be daunting. New presents add to the piles of toys and there seems to be a mountain of things to organize and clean. Here are our favorite tips to clear the clutter quickly and get your home back to normal! These things can be done before or after Christmas, but taking one thing a week instead of trying to do it all at once will make it manageable.

With all the hustle of the holidays, January is a great time when you don’t have a lot of outside obligations to do somethings inside your house. You’ve also been inside more and have started staring at things a little closer like the cobwebs in the window or the layer of dust that is now hanging like tinsel off of your ceiling fan. These tips are in no particular order. Do what works best for you first. I do recommend doing the cleaning stip last after you have cleared out the clutter. Start with a box or trash bags for things you want to donate to Goodwill or throw away when you are ready to clear things out.

Organizing Christmas Presents

Go through all your presents and make a pile of things that need to be returned or exchanged. Make sure you have the receipts with them or together in an envelope so you will have them with you. Make sure to check your receipts for return limitations so you don’t wait too long and miss a deadline.

Organizing Christmas Decorations

Go through all your decorations and throw out anything broken or worn that you don’t want to use again. Donate things that you didn’t use this year because most likely you won’t use them again. You can see my post on Organizing Christmas Decorations for tips on packing your decorations back up for next year.

Making Room for New Toys

The golden rule of organizing is when you bring in something new get rid of two. This is a job that can be done before Christmas as well but instead of finding more places to put the new stuff get rid of some of the old. Sit down with your children and go through their toys. Get rid of anything that they are too old to play with, broken toys, and things they don’t play with anymore.

Making Room for New Clothing

If your family is like mine and the kids are growing quick then most likely there are things in their closet that don’t fit anymore. Have your children help you go through their clothing and get rid of things that are too small or ripped. Also, ask them if there are things they don’t like and will never wear and donate those as well. Now you will have room for the new things they’ve received.

Cleaning the House after Christmas

Christmas brings on busy times and lots of dust so once you take the tree down and put everything away go ahead and do a deep clean before putting everything back in order. If you wait then you won’t get to it. I end up with fake snow and glitter all over the place anyway so it’s just a great time to get it all up. Dust, vacuum, and mop. Start from the top down which means ceiling fans and light fixtures go first and vacuuming is last. If you did a lot of cooking or baking over the holidays now’s the time to clean that oven too.

If you’d like some other Christmas Organizing and Cleaning Ideas check out Getting Your Home Ready for the Holidays and Easy Gift Wrap Organization.