Giving meaningfully is part of the holiday season. Follow your inner guide to give meaningfully.
A Guide to Giving Gift From Erin Carlyle
Homemade gifts from texascottage.blogspot.com
Gifts of Random Kindness from littlelucylu.com
For more ideas for simple gift giving, visit my pinterest page www.pinterest.com/EllenDelap Happy Holidays board!
Wishing you a season of meaningful sharing and gifting!
I love sharing my thoughts on Organize to Revitalize too!
Holiday Organizing: Enlist the Elves is posted there at http://dallisonlee.com/blog/2012/12/03/holiday-organizing-enlist-the-elves/.
Who are your elves?
Getting your decorating done for the holidays can be overwhelming! Over the years you have accumulated so many darling decorations, there is so much to sort through, there are so many places in your home to decorate, and there is only so much time. These 5 tips can help you get started and get finished with getting your decorating done.
1. Walk through your home and visualize the decorations in place. What special decorations always sit in one area? What areas are focal points in your home for your family and your holiday guests? What decorations are important to your kids? Start with a visual reminder of what is most important to you. Write down notes or draw pictures to help you as you work.
2. Review your calendar and see what time you have and when you want to be complete. If you have 2 weeks until a major event at your home, this accountability will help you. If not, set a date for completion for yourself.
3. Enlist the elves! Ask your family for help of even the smallest kind. Can your kids or husband set up the tree? Can they take down boxes and take our ornaments carefully? Can you pay your cleaning lady to come an extra day to assist? Put on the holiday music and get moving.
4. Choose a strategy to get the job done. It can be decorate room by room, decorate your door frames and table tops, or whatever strategy appeals to you. It will prevent you from roaming from space to space and help you get areas complete.
5. Know the emotion of “enough”. This season of abundance often means you never feel that you are done decorating. Perfectionism may creep in and decorating goes on, and on, and on. Knwoing what “enough” feels like makes a difference in moving forward to the next step of your holiday preparations.
What are your tips for decorating this holiday season?
Holiday time is almost here! November begins our holiday celebrations with Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah and New Year’s Eve. Our holidays bring amazing joy and lots to do at our homes. Doing just a little decluttering makes it easier to decorate your home and helps you feel prepared. Spend on hour on one of these four areas to help you get prepared for your most memorable holiday.
•Declutter last year’s holiday cards. It is a powerful way to prepare for this year’s cards by collecting addresses and eliminating extra paper clutter. You will be prepared knowing the number of cards to order too! Just a little less paper means a lot less stress.
• Declutter the toys in your home. There is no better way to prepare than by sharing your blessings with other’s less fortunate! Your kids can be a part of the process in choosing what is donated. They can choose 3 toys to donate and bless others. If you have unopened toys or crafts from previous years, it is a great experience for you and your children to bring these to local philanthropies for gift giving.
• Declutter your decor as you decorate. While you are decorating for the holidays, create an awareness of what has lost meaning or value to you in your home. Whether it is a knick-knack or books, you can declutter while you decorate to create space for the holiday decorations and create a space for new decor after the holidays. Thrift stores and consignment shops appreciate these items for upcoming holiday shoppers.
•Declutter your holiday decorations. Keepsake decorations can be stored and marked to honor wonderful memories and preserve these items to share with your family. Decorations that are in good condition are an excellent donation to local philanthropies and a special way to share the joy of the holiday.
Decluttering before decorating makes our holiday less stressful and more joyful. Put on holiday music and get started on one of these small projects. If you struggle with getting started or following through with your decluttering, give me a call to assist.
During the holidays, we add on to our already full plate with an oversized portion of mashed potatoes and holiday responsibilities! We are adding more tasks and time commitments with the holiday season. To ease the stress, let’s take the time for planning and preparation. A time line helps us add in holiday activities while not overwhelming us. Follow these holiday organizing tips in a week by week time line to help you get organized for your best holiday yet.
October
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
November
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
December
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Wishing everyone a delightful and festive holiday season!
Join me on Pinterest and view my Happy Holidays board! www.pinterest.com/EllenDelap
Celebrate the season with new meaning! There is something powerful about the holiday season and gift giving. View this site the advent conspiracy and see if you agree! Clutter free holiday gifts are a great way to share experiences, not stuff.
At this time of year we can teach our children about sharing by how we give gifts. We can unburden others by sharing in a new way. Clutter free gifts can include savings bonds, gift cards for gas or groceries, spa and pampering gifts, museum membership, entertainment tickets to local symphony or Broadway show, movie and a dinner, cooking, fishing or painting lessons, itunes or Starbucks gift cards, or any item that is consumable.
Non-profit gift giving is an alternative too! Give the gift your friend is passionate about by supporting a worthy cause. Consider a cash donation to a charity in honor of the recipient such as cancer research, green living, or supporting underprivileged families. You can find these by reviewing www.charitynavigator.org.
A gift always means more when you give the gift of yourself. Join a friend at an art class, yoga session, book club, or a scrapbooking class. Babysit for friends, nieces, nephews and grandchildren. Take a child to lunch, on a day trip, to the museum/zoo, or to a sports event. You can also make coupon book for those special and every day treats with things you know your partner would enjoy from the practical to the whimsical, such as a back rub, doing the dishes for a week, making a candlelight dinner, grocery shopping or packing a picnic.
Other ideas for sharing the fun include a pirate swap or “Secret Santa”. The pirate swap is passing out numbers from 1 to whatever for the number of people at the event. Number 1 picks a wrapped gift, number 2 can pick a gift or steal the unwrapped one from Number 1. With the Secret Santa you pick a name from a hat with all the adults in your family establishing a limit for the gift’s expense. Gifts can be goofy, practical, or holiday themed. One client hosts her swap just like Oprah’s Favorite Things show. Guests bring their “favorite” beauty item including lip gloss, face cream or other product and have a swap.
Virtual gifts are easy to make too! Create a family cookbook and give it on a flash drive to family members. Our family created a family cookbook last year to share within our family and with family friends. We use it constantly during the year to find frequently made foods. There are also many online scrapbooks to create with family photos as well. Check out http://www.smilebox.com/scrapbooks.html. Family photos can be shared and cherished in a new way this way.
Keep the meaning in your holiday this year. It is not about the perfect gift, it is about connecting with those who are dear. Where are you on the clutter free continuum? Start something new this holiday with clutter free gifts.
Join the holiday fun on my Facebook page.
It’s all about the food at this time of year! And getting your Thanksgiving dinner together takes planning and organizing. Some of us start our plans in early November and some of us start…well…not too early!
Early bird preparations
Procrastinator preparations
What are your favorite Thanksgiving hints for your family dinner?
No matter your style, I wish you a moist turkey and a sweet pumpkin pie for your holiday event!
We specialize in working with ADD/ADHD clients. Whether in your home or your office, we motivate, empower and affirm our clients in their quest for organizing and productivity! 