- Now, I know you're dreading decorating for Christmas,
but you don't have to anymore.
Christmas preparation is a lot of work.
There's sorting, buying, but I have you covered,
so you never have to go through that again.
And you will love it from now on,
or at least you won't hate it.
Now, recently, I asked my lovely YouTube viewers,
what stresses them out about Christmas?
And a lot of people said that decorating
for Christmas is what stresses them out.
So let's talk about that today.
Now, if this is your first time here, my name is Robin.
I help overwhelmed people, maybe like yourself,
simplify life through decorating, planning,
and productivity, so that you can relax and enjoy your life.
Now, grab your Christmas tea or eggnog, and let's go.
(cheery music)
Now, I'm going to have a bonus tip at the end
about taking down your Christmas decor
so hang tight for that.
Now decorating for Christmas is a lot of work.
There's the lifting, the lugging, the detangling,
the fighting, the yelling.
And then once you get your kids and your family involved,
it is so much worse than that.
That is before you learn how to simplify
all this Christmas stuff so that you can really
enjoy the season.
Now, I also seem to end up abandoned
in this process a lot of the time.
Now, I think that the best way to combat your family
getting frustrated and stressed out with the whole thing is
to make it super fun for everyone, yourself included.
Now, when my kids were young,
it was really easy to get them excited
into getting decorated for Christmas.
We would just say,
we're going to decorate for Christmas, everybody.
And they would come running up and they were so happy.
But now that they're teenagers,
it's a little bit more of a stretch
because there needs to be in incentive.
There needs to be a reward for the less motivated people
in your household.
Children, husband.
The work needs to equal a reward after the work is completed
and not before.
Now, try to make it fun.
(doorbell rings) So order pizza.
- It's Little Nero, sir.
I have your pizza.
- Have fun, maybe some fizzy drinks, some candy cane.
I myself like to get some yummy festive tea.
Now, you know, I love my Christmas...
tea.
Now I want to take this time to thank Dawn
from The Minimal Mom for creating this awesome playlist.
So you need to hang tight after this
because there are going to be a lot more awesome videos
to help you get yourself organized
for your Christmas decorating this year.
So I will link that playlist below.
Now, sorting decor you either don't like or no longer use is
time-consuming and kind of just plain annoying.
Now this just takes extra time and effort.
Now the best thing to do this year
as you decorate is sort as you go.
You don't want to be pulling out all of these things
that you don't like every year, just to repack them up,
just to pull them out next year, just to repack them up.
You don't even decorate with them.
Decorate with things that you really love.
Maybe it's something that just reminds you
of something special.
Maybe you just, it's a picture you look at.
It reminds you of a nice mountain top
or going skiing or something like that.
Maybe you have a special feeling or it has a special meaning
or memory for you.
Put out the sentimental things in a prominent place
so that you can enjoy them.
The thing about Christmas is,
there is a lot of feelings that come with that.
And as we get older, it just does not simplify.
It just gets worse to be honest with you.
So it takes a little bit of effort
to keep your mind in a good state.
Now remember the difference between treasures and trinkets.
And we will get into more of that later.
Now, anything that you don't put out, you should declutter.
There is no use in hanging onto things
that you will never decorate with.
Make a pile to donate and a pile to sell,
and then declutter those things within a week.
When I am decluttering,
I will weekly take things because I don't want them sitting
around in my garage or my house just annoying me.
This is also a great time to donate
because others will be looking to decorate as well.
So maybe you aren't well-organized
and this causes extra stress for you.
Now, do you have bins and boxes crammed full?
Do you find that the sorting is kind of random?
Like you have a box with lights and decorations
and garland and beads
and then another box with the same thing?
Are you not even sure what's in every box?
This is the easiest and most fun part for me.
And yes, I am kind of a nerd when it comes to this.
But once Christmas is over, you get out your bins
and you put things in designated boxes.
Then you get yourself an ornament sorting bin.
Now these are great.
I absolutely love them.
They have a grid so that you can safely
put your ornaments in.
I was going to get out my Christmas decorations
in the organized bin with the different grid,
but they are at the bottom of all of the Christmas stuff.
So I just thought I would just show you.
I updated my Amazon store, so I will show you.
This is pretty much exactly what we have.
It has a grid here.
You can see there, and you can just put things in there.
So on the store, and you can get these anywhere.
And if you're in Canada, where I am,
I got mine at Canadian Tire.
But I did put a couple of options here
and then bubble wrapping packing paper,
but you can get that anywhere.
So those are the things that we use
to pack away our Christmas ornaments afterwards.
Now, you want to wrap up the really special ones though.
I buy bubble wrap from Home Depot or Amazon,
and I wrap up my ornaments and they should last forever,
this stuff.
So don't worry too much about the environment.
You're keeping them safe.
You can also just buy paper.
I think that's good too.
In fact, in my family,
we just went through my grandma's Christmas stuff.
Tons of it was wrapped in good old paper towel.
I then placed them in a container and I label the container
with the theme and the room that it belongs in.
So then next year when I decorate,
it's way easier because I can just put things
in the correct room.
This label maker we got from my grandparents,
because they just downsized their house.
There's a video coming on that next week.
But anyway, I am going to print off the things
that are in this box, the main things
and the room that this box is to be brought to, to decorate.
Now, another thing people might find
that they just have too much decor.
So the thing about Christmas is Christmas
can sometimes look a little tacky.
Let's call it cluttered.
Now here's the thing.
You want a peaceful environment
to enjoy the glorious season.
Now, nothing takes away from that more than looking around
at a room that is cluttered at Christmas.
I mean, this is ultimately a season
for enjoying and celebrating the birth of Jesus.
And you don't want to be looking around
and being stressed out.
Now, you know, I am not an extreme minimalist.
I like to practice intentional yet reasonable minimalism.
And you are going to see more of that
in my upcoming Christmas decor videos,
because buckle up because it's not a hundred percent
minimalist at Christmas time at my house.
I don't go crazy, but I think you're going to like it.
So hang tight for those videos coming up.
Now, one of the problems is not putting away some
or all of your normal decor.
So what you want to do is replace your Christmas decor
in the boxes with your normal decor.
So pack them away in the Christmas decorating boxes
for easy storage.
I also think it's best to be really mindful
with what you put out for your decorating.
As I said before, put out things that you really like,
things that are treasures, things that are special to you,
like your mom's Norwegian gnomes,
which your mom hasn't given you yet
because she has the buried and you're very patiently waiting
for these Norwegian gnomes.
I'm not talking about anyone in particular.
Maybe you just really like it.
But the thing about treasures is they are things
that are very special to you.
Like your mom's Norwegian gnomes,
because they were there when you were a child.
And you really liked them, just as an example.
So treasures are really rare.
Trinkets or things that you like,
but they don't really have much meaning for you.
Trinkets are something you may want to part with.
Now, I think that the most important thing is not
to overwhelm your eyes with your Christmas decor.
This is when your brain starts saying, wait, wait,
there's clutter.
And then it starts equaling stress for it.
Now, another idea is to not put out
too many different colors in the same space.
You want to keep things sort of like simple
in different spots, for my taste anyway.
And you want to enjoy the holidays and keeping
it a little more simplified is best, in my opinion.
Now be really intentional with what you put out.
Another tip though,
I really liked decorating with natural decor.
I love bringing in Cedar bowels.
We do live in a forest so I can get those.
There are some Holly trees,
and I love to put some oranges around.
It's just a really nice peaceful kind of way of decorating.
But again,
don't go overboard by packing a bunch of things together,
because then it will just become too stressful
and cluttered on your eye.
Now, for some reason, it just seems much simpler.
Now, when do you take your Christmas decor down.
Once you have decluttered all of the decor
that you don't need anymore,
you only put out the special things
and the things that you enjoy and you put the stuff
that it's easy to put away.
You've got your organized bins.
So it's so much simpler.
But Christmas decorations for me are more
than just holiday decor.
They are light and brightness
during the darkest time of the year.
Now we live on the side of a mountain,
and it is dark in the winter.
At Christmas time, our house is dark at 4:00 PM,
and we live in Southern Canada.
So imagine what it's like as you get further north.
So the Christmas lights are such a blessing
at Christmas time.
So what I've started doing is I put away all of
the Christmas decor before New Year's Eve
in their designated bins,
but we leave out the Christmas lights.
Now I might leave lights on the tree
and leave the tree up for a little bit
because the brightness is just so cheerful.
I also have some lights that I just put on a sideboard,
which brings a lot of light to our dining room.
So I really liked that.
Now I love so, so much about Christmas.
And I like to do a lot of things for my own enjoyment.
Like I want to decorate, I want to give gifts.
I want to build gingerbread houses.
I want to bake, but I want to fit it all in.
And I honestly want to do that stuff, but to do it,
I have to start early.
So check this video here about how I do that.
It is my fail safe way about how to get it all done
so that you can enjoy Christmas and the holiday season.
All right, thank you friends for joining me,
and I will see you next time.
Bye!
(cheery music)