Getting Your Home Organized for the New Year

Suggestions for Storage

It's the end of another year, and if you're like me, perhaps you've looked around your home, and realized that you still haven't reached your goal of getting organized. The New Year is the perfect time to start. Even as we go through the Christmas season, there are things that will help. Start with getting your Christmas decorations organized. As you put up your Christmas decorations this year (and take them down) go through your storage boxes, and see what you haven't used in quite awhile. Eliminate those Christmas items that you don't think you will use again. Perhaps you know a young couple, just starting out, that would really welcome some extra Christmas decorations. If not, donate them to a thrift store, where others may be able to use them. Test all your strings of Christmas lights, and get rid of any that don't work. Yes, it's good to keep a couple for replacement lights, but after that, it's just confusing and cumbersome to have too many strings of Christmas lights that aren't useful. This way, when you get your Christmas decoration storage boxes out next year, everything that you find will be something that you enjoy decorating with. And get some of those wonderful large Rubbermaid storage boxes. They are the perfect organizing tool. They all come with lids, and you can fit lots of smaller storage boxes inside them. They even come in attractive rainbow colors now, and a nice red for Christmas storage. (And they're stackable.) Also, keep in mind that if you are moving, or unpacking things, and can't get to them immediately, these storage containers don't even look that bad sitting out in a corner of a room, until you can get to them. I have even been known to throw a tablecloth over two of them (neatly stacked), and use them like a table, until I could get them unpacked. And who can't use an extra side table for the Christmas holidays?