Monday, September 24, 2012

Conquer Clutter: Holiday Decorations

Pottery Barn Halloween Decoration Image from Luxury Beauty Products

  I love going over to friend's houses where they decorate for the holidays.  Everything looks so nice.  I also enjoy going for a ride and seeing all the Christmas lights that people put up outside their homes.  As for me, I have decided that we aren't going to be one of those people.  We prefer to have less and use less.
     Every year, I look at the decorations we have and cull the ones we don't use any more.  For a few years, I used gold and white for our tree.  I got some really cute decorations on sale and loved the way our tree looked.  I got tired of gold and white and changed two years ago to a different color scheme.  I donated the gold and white so someone else could enjoy them.  Just because something worked at one time in our life, doesn't mean that it still works for us.  Be flexible and move on.  You don't have to do the same thing every year of your life unless it is what you really like. 
       Before each holiday season, take the time to look through what you have, especially before you go buy something new.  Keep what you like and donate what you are tired of.   Things won't build up if you do this on a regular yearly basis. 

Pottery Barn Christmas Decorations from Zeospot

(As I looked at this picture I thought it might be a fun tradition to have a wooden box with the 25 square and use it as an advent calendar.  You could put a gift each day in each spot.)

2 comments:

  1. I only decorate for Halloween/Thanksgiving & Christmas. The other holdays never much appealed to me in terms of decorating, but even with the holidays I do decorate for - I've culled so many things that once were a necessity (or so I thought) but now are just holiday stuff forever relegated to the attic.
    I went thru the Pottery Barn phase in which nearly every room was somehow decorated for the holidays & man did that wear me out. Sure it was fun & festive but exhausting & put so much self-induced pressure on me that I began to dread the holidays. So I sold off most of that stuff & kept what I truly enjoy seeing every holiday season.
    Also I stopped receiving catalogs & don't web surf over to Pottery Barn anymore. If I don't go looking for stuff - I won't find more stuff.

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  2. Thanks for sharing your experience. It seems like we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make everything "perfect". I hope you feel more peace and enjoy the holidays more now with the stuff you like the most.

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