With the holiday season comes a time for warmth, joy and socialising, providing the opportunity to create some wonderful memories.
However, the societal pressure to have everything organised within a tight timeframe, coupled with our usual year-round responsibilities, can bring stress, making it challenging to enjoy the festive period.
Managing Festive Clutter: Tips for a Minimalist Christmas
Our homes play a pivotal role during this season. They become a central space for celebrating and socialising; but they can quickly become overwhelmed with gifts, decorations, festive food and houseguests, in turn.
While this is expected during the holiday season, if our homes were already cluttered and cramped, they don't leave much room for the extra "bulk" that takes up residence as the festivities transpire.
This can lead to a cluttered and chaotic home, which contributes greatly to your overall stress levels.
By decluttering your home and adopting a "minimalist Christmas" ethos, you can create more space and prevent unnecessary waste. This allows you to focus on creating meaningful memories, staying present and enjoying the festivities, instead of battling a chaotic home or obsessing over material possessions.
In this post, we'll suggest a few simple strategies that can minimise the potential stress and disorder in your home during the festive period.
1. Start with a Clear Decluttering Plan
Begin creating a solid plan tailored to your home's unique needs.
Identify which areas of your home would benefit from decluttering, prioritising the most cluttered.
Consider how much extra space you want to create while making your plan. Just need some more room for your Christmas tree? Or do you want to completely rearrange your furniture to create a communal, festive atmosphere in your home?
It's good to carry out your decluttering plan before decorating for the season.
Having a plan will keep you accountable and prevent you from getting sidetracked.
Set realistic goals and a timeline to achieve them.
2. How to Declutter
It can be difficult to part with clutter. We make up stories with ourselves about how we might want an old belonging in a few months, all the while knowing it will sit in the attic until next year.
The gratification we can get from decluttering is astonishing, providing more room in our homes and extra headspace.
Here's a simple decluttering how-to guide to get you started:
Create "keep", "donate" and "dispose of" piles.
Toss trash first. The items that go in the "dispose of" piles are usually the easiest to part with. Doing it this way gives you a kickstart.
It's a great idea to start by choosing a small area to organise and sort the items in that area into the piles mentioned above. After that, you can move on to methodically organise the other areas of your home. Remember to stick to the designated area before moving on to the next one. This approach can help reduce mid-clean chaos and keep the process systematic.
Plan and decide how you'll dispose of the items you no longer need. It's common for bags of old stuff to accumulate and linger around for weeks after decluttering. Consider donating your unwanted belongings to charities or families in need. You could also try selling higher-value items online. For larger items, a trip to the recycling centre may be necessary.
Neatly reorganise the items you want to keep back into your storage areas.
3. Streamline Decorations
While Christmas decorations are a key way to increase your home's festivity, overdoing them can result in a cluttered atmosphere.
Instead, opt for a minimalist approach. When purchasing new decorations, try to stick to one theme or colour scheme.
I love to use more natural decorations when preparing my home for Christmas, using real fir branches, pinecones, pomanders and white string lights.
This provides a simple but beautiful base for my Christmas decor, which is perfect on its own, but also complementary to more glamorous and colourful decorations if that's your style.
When decorating your home, avoid randomly scattering the ornaments. This can add to the chaos. Instead, consider creating a central holiday display in a few, streamlined areas. This simplifies the cleanup and gives your space a cohesive, neat and stylish look.
Related Pinterest Board: Minimalist Christmas
4. Organise with Storage Solutions
The key to keeping clutter at bay is having the right storage. When everything has a designated space, tidying becomes more effortless and streamlined.
Smart storage is all about making the most of your space with multi-purpose furniture, clever organising and efficient systems. This makes your storage both accessible and ergonomic.
Smart storage can be applied to any type of furniture, and if you're good at DIY you can upgrade any area of your home to optimise space and improve accessibility.
Some simple ways to increase the functionality of your storage include:
Use storage boxes and bins to categorise closets and cupboards.
Put up over-the-door hanging racks on doors and inside closets to increase storage space.
Opt for tall, vertical storage to make the most of your space.
Choose multi-purpose furniture such as ottomans inside which you could store linens, etc.
Label everything! This way, you won't need to rummage around looking for things.
Bonus tip: Always measure your space before buying a new piece of furniture. You might benefit from a larger/taller item so no space is wasted!
5. Mindful Shopping Practices
It's hard to resist impulse buying, especially during the holiday season when stores offer huge discounts and gift-giving is all around us.
To keep your home clutter-free, resist the urge to accumulate more stuff.
There are a few mindful practices you can do to improve your trigger-happy shopping tendencies:
Make a budget: Before a shopping trip, set yourself a spending limit and stick to it. This can help to keep you accountable.
Be aware of your emotions: When we feel an emotion, it can make us more susceptible to unnecessary spending. When you get the urge to purchase something you don't need, take a deep breath, recognise any emotions that are present and ask yourself: "Are my emotions influencing my desire for this item?". This simple self-inquiry can help you make more mindful purchases and avoid accumulating things you don't need, or even want.
The 24-hour rule: Wait a day before making non-essential purchases. It helps curb impulse spending by providing time for thoughtful consideration, evaluating needs vs. wants, and promoting mindful financial choices.
6. Create a Decluttering Routine
Implement a regular decluttering routine into your daily, weekly or monthly schedule.
This proactive approach can enable you to maintain a clutter-free environment, ensuring your home stays as tidy and spacious as possible.
Regular decluttering can be as simple as spending a few minutes sorting through your mail, emptying your recycling bins or choosing a small area of your home to organise.
7. Embrace the Gift of Experiences
When shopping for presents for loved ones (especially your household members!), consider gifting experiences rather than material possessions.
Experiences such as concert tickets, classes (such as cooking or pottery), outdoor adventures or even vacations, all give the receiver a chance to make lasting memories.
This can be much more meaningful than receiving an object which adds to the physical clutter in your home.
A well-crafted home supports your ability to be adaptable when life gets overwhelming. Decluttering your space for the holidays is not just about tidying up and clever storage. By adopting mindful strategies that keep your home spacious, clean and organised, you provide yourself with an environment that is nurturing for your mind, allowing for a less stressful life.
Happy Holidays!
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