Last night I ended up taking my tree down. On December 25th. This was not done out of an abundance of impatience to be done with the holiday. I had intended to leave it up until this weekend. We had a minor accident, with the mirror that hung over the mantle. It came crashing down, after a fair bit of stomping upstairs, and shattered, all around the Christmas tree. I ended up, in an abundance of caution, taking the tree down, shaking all of the glass out of it, and storing it away for next year. Not an ideal end to Christmas Day. My Christmas was already feeling a little depressing, because with the boys being mostly grown now, Christmas shopping was all about gift cards, big ticket items like guitars and amplifiers, and mixers. The number of presents felt a little light, our tree opening ceremony was short lived, and it lacked the energy of Christmas morning with little ones, with loads of presents, to watch them excitedly unwrap. Our youngest was very animated, therefore fun to watch, and the older boys were happy with their gifts, but this year I struggled, more than usual, with the fact that they are all growing up. I have spent every possible minute with them but it still feels like it’s happened too fast. Such is the struggle of the parent of teens. As there is almost always a bright side, I woke up today with the biggest post-Christmas chore already accomplished, and a yen to get back to a very tidy feeling home again.
This is how I want my home to feel. Maybe someday.
We have embraced minimalism for many years now, but have been finding it a struggle, since moving north again, to maintain it, especially in the wintertime. You just need so much stuff! I find myself purging our belongings monthly, but it feels as though we are buried under a mountain of junk. Everybody has at least four jackets. In Florida we had one. Everybody has at least eight pair of shoes. In Florida we had four or five. You just need more. We had a bigger place in Florida. As you can imagine, six people in a smaller space, with twice as much stuff, is a recipe for disaster. Literally. Now, my sons are not slobs. They put a ton of effort into keeping things orderly. They have had a consistent chore routine since they were small. Keeping a clean house was completely effortless in Florida. Here it feels overwhelming at times. Since most of our Christmas mess was handled last night, due to the small number of gifts we had purchased for the boys, we decided to spend today purging and deep cleaning the house to prepare for the coming new year.
After Christmas there seems to be a few things in particular that holds people back from tackling the Christmas clutter:
- An abundance of new toys, games, clothes etc, with no set place to store them.
- Leftover food.
- Christmas ornaments
- Tree
- Lights
- Miscellaneous Christmas decor: rugs, linens, pillows, candles, pictures, knick-knacks etc.
Hopefully, before Christmas, you purged the toy room, to make some extra space for the new toys and games coming in. If not, now is a great time to do so. If you use the one in/one out rule you will have the toy mess handled promptly. The same rule can be applied to new clothing. For every new article of clothing purchased, you can remove an old one and hang it’s replacement in that space.
With a family of six, with four tween/teen boys, we don’t often have leftovers for long. We make lasagna for Christmas dinner, so it’s not hard to convince them to clean up the leftovers for the next couple of days. If we did do the traditional ham dinner I would have tons of leftover ham. They would happily eat it on Christmas day, but that’s it. If you do have leftover ham, my suggestion would be to freeze it until New Year’s Day, and use it in your Hoppin’ John. Toss some black eyed peas, onions and collards in a crockpot with the leftover ham, and let it cook all day. Invite friends over for a New Year’s feast. Freeze your leftover cookies, candy, or fudge, to pull out on New Year’s also. Set up a dessert table, add champagne, for guests to enjoy. By the end of the meal, you should be pretty much, leftover free.
When it comes to taking down the tree there are tons of little tricks to keep it orderly and keep your special ornaments safely tucked away until next year. You can, of course, buy special boxes with individual slots for each ornament, but they can get pretty pricey. An easy method that my sister taught me is to wrap similar ornaments in color coded tissue paper, and nestle them neatly into sturdy shoe boxes, put on shelves. This way you know which set is which, and if you change up your tree’s theme each year, you can easily find the sets that you are looking for.
The simplest way to store your tree’s lights, is to wind them up neatly and store in a gallon ziplock bag. We set ours right into the tote with the tree, on top, so they are easily found and tested, the next year.
A part of Christmas cleanup that I find particularly frustrating is going around the house, searching for all of the miscellaneous Christmas items that we throw around to bring cheer to every corner of the house. Throw pillows, Christmas rugs, tablecloths, napkins, the Christmas candles, and little soaps etc. We even switch out our art to Christmas pictures. We set around wooden nutcrackers, and nativity sets. With all of the little things we set out and around, we are bound to forget one or two. Or ten. That means ten different trips back to the Christmas storage to return everything to its proper place. I’m pretty patient about it, until a week after Christmas, when I think I’ve gotten it all, then find one lone bauble hanging out in my kid’s room, under the bed.
Where the heck did that come from? Trip number eleven. Finally, done! I hope.
The most difficult part, for some, is finding the motivation to take on the overwhelming task of Christmas cleanup. When I am feeling buried under the mess, I scour pinterest for minimalist homes, decluttering posts, tiny home hacks, and anything that inspires me to get up off my butt and clean. I start in one corner of my house and begin purging what needs purged. I divide my home into six zones. Three downstairs, and three upstairs. Starting in zone one, I put everything back in it’s proper place, and purge/donate what needs to be gotten rid of. Then, I tidy, fluff, arrange until everything looks exactly right. Next, I sweep and mop, swipe and dust until everything is gleaming. This includes, floors, ceilings, lights, walls, pictures, baseboards, everything. When zone one is finished, I move onto zone two, repeating the same process until zone two is finished. If I have to stop, for some reason, as soon as I get a chance I pick up with zone three, and continue until the entire house is immaculate. The great thing about this process is that with six zones, and six people, if I have the boys around to help, I can just assign them a zone and they know what to do. If all six of us are here, the whole house can be immaculate in 30-60 minutes.
Don’t hesitate to enlist the help of family members to get your home back in order. Everyone enjoyed the holiday, everyone should participate in getting life back on track after. It’s important to start your New Year feeling organized and on top of your game. That goes for everyone in the family. Put the kids in charge of taking care of their new things, teach them how to organize, and keep belongings in great condition. Start the New Year strong with everything in it’s place. Help the kiddos do the same. They will go back to school refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the school year, and you will feel accomplished and ready to handle whatever new and exciting prospects 2020 has in store for you!
How about you? Do you have any tips or hacks for dealing with the Christmas cleanup? Share your ideas in the comments. Find our Can I Get a Ramen boards on Pinterest to see more minimalist home ideas. Find us on FB @canigetaramen.food.blog and on Insta @canigetaramen.
