How To Purge Your House From Clutter Before Christmas

Do you feel that your home is going to burst and Christmas isn’t even here yet? Do you want to purge your house from clutter before Christmas and before more stuff arrives? 

I get you, I used to feel like that too, in fact, most years before Christmas begins I start to feel like I need to purge items from my home just to let it breathe. 

Let me teach you how to purge your home before the craziness of the holiday season. 

Taking Control Of Your Home

It doesn’t have to be difficult to control your clutter. But acting now will prevent it getting worse once the holidays start.

Saving you from unnecessary stress and anxiety.

Declutter Before Christmas

It’s not about a major organizing project, but a way to lighten the load. 

Give you space to breathe and to contemplate how you want to move forward with the holiday season and the new items that will come into your home.

Why More Storage Isn’t The Answer

But don’t think about getting more storage. Most of the time this isn’t the problem, reducing the items in your home will be more beneficial than putting more storage into your home.

Look at it in a different way, if there’s no room, then things need to go. 

You don’t need to just keep adding storage to an already full room, that’s not solving the problem, just adding to it.

How To Declutter Your Home

This isn’t the beginner’s guide to decluttering, let’s save that for another article.

But I will give you a basic idea of decluttering and the process you need to follow.

Thinking about these questions will help you work out what is currently clutter in your home and what needs to go.

• Does anybody use it?
• Is the item broken?
• Does anybody want it?
• Is it something that could be thrown away today?

These are very basic questions you need to ask when on a decluttering mission.  They might seem like simple questions, but they will have a major impact on the clutter in your home.

The Emotional Toll Of Decluttering

But, be warned, clearing clutter from your home is emotionally draining.

This isn’t about getting your home totally clutter-free but taking those first few steps to help you begin the process. 

More importantly, the idea is to begin to understand the process so in the future you can start seeing the actual clutter in your home.

How Often Do You Need To Declutter?

Going through your home regularly is important, it’s surprising how quickly clutter seems to accumulate without you even noticing it’s there, before Christmas is a great time. 

All you are really doing is removing those items from your home that you no longer like, need or want in your home. Living a clutter free life is possible and obtainable.

The need to purge becomes an essential tool to remove the excess clutter, which everyone builds up over time.

So, start thinking about decluttering a couple of times a year. This will really help you take control of the clutter. 

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Label As You Go

Knowing what is going where is important so making categories is so helpful. 

But it’s easy to forget what your categories are so you do need to label them. Now there are a lot of label makers on the market but the handheld label maker that I use is the Dymo label maker, but I also use my Cricut for some labels too.

Having the categories ready before you start makes the process so much easier.

Ideas of different categories:

• Storage, don’t be afraid to put things away if you are not ready to part with them yet. But not everything can go in storage, have a limit on the number of items. 
• Donate, have a box ready to put items in for donation when it is full, donate it as soon as you can.
• Sell, this is a difficult category, if something doesn’t sell quickly you must have a time limit and maybe think of alternative options.
• Gift, only give people what they want, if they really don’t want something don’t force your clutter on another person.
• Trash, if things are broken or don’t work, then putting it in the bin is getting rid of the clutter. You might want to recycle the item if you can, but don’t keep it with the purpose or thought that it might be handy in the future.

By having your categories set up before you start you have fewer choices to make and this will make the process easier.

Storage Ideas For Organizing Items To Go

But what do you use to put items in? Here are some suggestions:

• Cardboard boxes are always handy but long term use is questionable because they are essentially fragile.
• Having plastic storage boxes will last longer but they won’t collapse down so you will need to think how to store them when they aren’t in use.
• Trash bags could also be useful for putting items in, make sure they are strong enough for the items you are putting in there.

How Clutter Takes Over Your Home

Clutter is great at hiding in plain sight, you can’t always see it but it slowly builds over time taking over your home.

It knows how to hide in plain sight and slowly over time you begin to just accept it as part of your home and that’s when the clutter starts to become a problem. 

You become blind to the excess that you live with, it becomes a burden that you don’t even see, but one that can take a toll on your health and well-being.

When Does Clutter Become A Problem?

How much clutter you have will depend on how you live and what you perceive as clutter.

It doesn’t have to look like your house is bursting at the seams with the number of items you have, it’s about how many of these items in your home that you actually need and want.

Tips And Strategies To Help You Clear The Clutter

It only really becomes a problem when you have too much and not enough room to live comfortably in your home. But if you tackle it before it gets to this point it’s easier to deal with. 

• Don’t allow piles to form in your home
• Put things away where they belong
• If you replace something, get rid of the old item
• Do you need multiples of the same item?

Thinking about how clutter can affect us is difficult, but you do need to see the clutter before you can take action. If you are looking for the clutter then it’s less likely to hide. 

Have a system set up in your home management file that suggests when to tackle your decluttering sessions. If you want more information on home management then read this article that discusses home management and what it is.

Christmas Declutter

We all know that the holiday season will bring more items into our homes and starting now can prevent the overwhelm happening during the holiday season. 

Sometimes clutter becomes a fire hazard as things pile up too close to the heating systems in our homes. This is when clutter becomes dangerous and not something you should ever accept as OK, because your life is worth more than anything that can cause a fire. 

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Make Money By Selling Your Clutter

If you are short on cash for buying items for family and friends, clearing the clutter can have positive effects on your income. 

Just because something has turned into clutter for you doesn’t mean that it’s worth nothing. If the item is in good condition you could consider selling the item. 

How To Purge Your Home Before Christmas

I know there is a lot to do when it comes to this time of the year and all the extra little tasks you need to do. 

However, it is worth all the extra time that you can carve out now to tackle some decluttering projects, so you are ready for the ‘new’ items that will appear in your home after Christmas.

How To Declutter Your House

First, you need a plan. Having a plan allows you to think about what you want to achieve and the end goal you want to reach.

You need to think about what you want your home to look like when it’s completely organized?

What items need to go, and where they need to go.

This is a slow process, one that is going to take time. It’s not going to be complete in one day and it’s going to have an effect on your emotional energy too.

Removing clutter is mentally stressful, so plan to have plenty of time to tackle a project as you will need time to recover from the emotional stress as well as the physical act of decluttering. 

How To Get Rid Of The Clutter

Getting rid of the items you don’t want and finding the right places for the items that you need to let go off is important .

It’s easy to move clutter from one room to another thinking that you are going to sell some things or take them to the charity shop.

However, you actually have to take action for this to happen. If you plan to sell items, you need to get them listed. If you plan on giving items to charity, get them to the charity shop as soon as possible.

Try storage boxes like these, add labels for places you can donate or items you want to sell and take action on them.

Put a date on the box so you know when items were placed in there and ensure they are out of your home within a set time period. 

Don’t Purge Without A Plan

There is no point pulling items out that you no longer want or need without a plan as to what to do with them. If they are left sitting in the way they become even more annoying with nowhere to go.

They become part of a bigger problem and this can add stress and anxiety to an already stressful situation. 

Having a plan for the items you want out of your home is easier and a lot less stressful.

Emotions Run High

Don’t pull out too much at once, it’s an emotional time, items will hold memories and this disrupts the process of decluttering as you think about the item in your hand.

You’ll be surprised how much time it can take to go through the things that you own but no longer need; it is often the emotional feelings towards the object that is the hardest to deal with or to let go.

It can remind you of a memory from the past and this makes it difficult to purge the clutter. Don’t feel bad about how difficult it is to purge your home from clutter, everyone will have issues at some point.

But what is important is making the right decisions for you.

Take Your Time

This is why it is important that you do this task in small batches; it’s emotional and can bring back memories that can hinder the process of getting rid of the clutter.

If you don’t have space for items you might just need to let it go, but before you do remember those feelings and acknowledge them, even take a photo of the item it will help you remember those memories.

Pushing feelings down and burying them can have an impact on how you feel, talking about those feelings and memories with a loved one can help.

Why Purge Before Christmas

It’s that time of year where you know you will add more to your home, getting rid of those items you don’t need helps to free up space.

I found that when my children were younger it was easier to purge their toys at this time of the year because they’re caught up in the season and what’s coming that they were even willing to help with the sorting process.

Tips To Purging Toys Before Christmas

It is important, too, for children to understand that they don’t need to have a lot of possessions and that it is good to give them to other children who might enjoy playing with the item that is no longer suitable for them.

But don’t get rid of your child’s things without them, it can make it even more difficult for them to let go of stuff in the future. 

Purging children’s toys is difficult, go here if you want more information on toy decluttering.

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Teach Children How To Let Go

It is hard to let something that you love go, however, if we teach children as they grow about not hoarding clutter and how that, as you grow your opinions and tastes change, then they are better able to practice those steps as they grow.

Ideas to help let things go:

• Bring me a broken toy
• What is your least favourite toy, something that you no longer like
• Give me something that we can give to someone else to keep

If you try different techniques to help them get used to giving and recycling their toys, it makes the process easier.

However, they have to see you making the same choices and decisions too.

Why Purging Your Clutter Is Good

It is not about emptying your home but just getting rid of the excess that you don’t need, what you do with the items is a personal preference.

However, if you don’t need the money and the item is still in good condition you might consider giving the item to a charity. 

The Positives From Purging

By purging your clutter before Christmas, it will give you more space for the items that you receive as gifts at Christmas.

However, there are more benefits than just that, there is less cleaning to do if there is less stuff around and this is always a bonus especially at this time of the year.

But also, less stuff allows you to see your home, you don’t need it filled to the rafters, it’s OK to have drawers and shelving that are empty.

It will mean that when Christmas is over you are not looking for more storage to store even more items because you will have the space already and waiting.

Why Purge And When To Purge

If you need more storage and you are not increasing the size of your family, you might just need to purge what you have, reducing the need to increase your storage options and saving you money long-term.

Let’s Recap…

Why should you consider decluttering your home now?

It will allow you to free up space ready for the new items that will appear on Christmas morning.

It might help towards some of the costs of buying presents if you are able to sell the items or it might just help someone who is in need and can’t afford the item new.

Whatever the reason, if you need to purge your clutter before Christmas, it is one item to cross off your to-do list.

Remember decluttering is not something that is going to happen overnight, it takes time and is emotionally draining too.