day 306: organizing for christmas—organizing yourself first

I know Thanksgiving is coming first—and I don’t want to diminish that, but Christmas seems to creep upon us so quickly after Thanksgiving that I wanted to start on some Christmas tips, organizing ideas, gift ideas, traditions, read alouds, and more. So here is my first installment of that!

I have some more Thanksgiving books to review—and would still love to have others’ Thanksgiving traditions if we have any guest bloggers out there who would like to contribute—so we’ll do a little of both holidays in the coming weeks. (Send Thanksgiving ideas to be used at PP 365 to cqlalady@mchsi.com asap!)

The very first tip we give in our organization workshops (and in parenting in general) is to start with yourself. The same is true of getting organized for Christmas. We might want the bedrooms cleaned for holiday guests, but if our room is a mess, the other cleaning is not going to look too inviting to our kids. If we want the kids to go through toys and get a load ready for Goodwill, but we do not clean out our things to get rid of some things, our kids might balk at the thought of their getting rid of things.

So….organize your personal space first. If you want to get recipes organized for Christmas, start now! Type a recipe a day so that when your holiday baking or cooking comes around, you will be ready. (By the way, stay tuned for some easy-to-make-with-kids holiday goodie recipes!)

I like to go through my closets and misc things first, getting things ready to move out. (We have an extremely small house, so we have had to get rid of things at least every month in order to keep the house from exploding! Thus, sorting and getting rid of things before Christmas is just a natural extension of that.) Consider what new things you might get for Christmas or what purchases you will be making. We like to take something out for most clothing items that we bring in.

Whatever it is that you have wanted to do to be more organized for Christmas, start now! An hour of wrapping gifts here and there in November will go far in relieving stress later on. Cookie dough put in the freezer on a Saturday morning in November will be that much of a head start on Christmas festivities later.

Whatever organizing that you want done—start with yourself. Start with your personal organization, then any misc things you can do ahead of time, and then start helping your kids get organized. (More tips in days to come on that.)