Getting Organized after the Holidays

December has come and gone, and with it, the year-end holidays.  We’ve all ushered in a brand new year, and it would be great to start 2012 in a state of organized optimism.  Before January activities get fully underway, however, you have to take time to get your house back in order.  A few organizational strategies implemented now will make it easier to get back on track – and to access your holiday items easily when you need them again next December.

First, of course, it’s time to clean up any leftover holiday mess.  Store fold out tables in their basement or garage storage areas, launder and fold ornamental tablecloths and cloth napkins and return them to the linen closet, and take holiday clothing that requires special treatment to an environmentally-friendly dry cleaning service.  If you discovered unnoticed spills in the process of moving things around or returning furniture to its pre-holiday location, read our blog post about how to deal with Forgotten Spills to learn how to tackle the problem.  To spruce up your carpets after extensive holiday traffic, call COIT at 1-800-FOR-COIT to schedule a professional Carpet Cleaning Service.

If you hang holiday lights indoors or outside your home, now is the time to take them down and store them carefully for the coming year.  MarthaStewart.com recommends that you keep lights organized by winding the strands neatly around a piece of cardboard that will fit into a labeled plastic bin.  Storing holiday ornaments in labeled and/or color-coded bins will keep them organized until the next holiday season.  Once they’re safely in bins, they can be placed in accessible areas of your garage, basement, or attic.

Do you have leftover wrapping paper?  You can store what’s left on the remaining cardboard tubes.  Just re-wrap extra paper and loose sheets on the cardboard before storing in a clean, dry area near your decorations.  As for wrapping materials such as scissors, scotch tape, hole punches, and rubber stamps, consider storing them in shoebox size, stackable bins in your sewing room, home office, or other accessible area for the next time you’ll need to wrap a gift.

If your family includes children, it’s likely their cache of toys increased over the holidays.  If you didn’t take a toy inventory and de-clutter your children’s rooms before the holidays, our blog post, “Does Your Child Have Too Many Toys?” offers tips on how to work with your child to decide what to keep and what to donate, and how to store toys in organized, easily accessible ways.

What about all of those special holiday cooking tools?  Return holiday-only baking pans, small appliances, and cooking utensils to their storage areas on shelves, or to the appropriate closets and cabinets.  A good rule of thumb when organizing the kitchen is to place rarely used items on higher-up shelves or more out-of-reach places, while keeping commonly used items within easy reach.

TheCraftingChicks.com offers these additional post-holiday organizing tips:

• Replace old calendars with new ones, and update them for the New Year by labeling dates with family’s upcoming appointments and events.
• When planning meals in the New Year, consider the effects of holiday food burnout.  Choose healthy foods and build meals around dishes that don’t include over-used holiday ingredients.
• Make space for new clothing by emptying your closets of garments you no longer need and donating them to a local thrift store or charity.

In the end, post-holiday organization is much like organizing tasks at any time of year.  The key is to remove excess clutter and items you don’t need to make room for the things you will be keeping, and to maximize storage space wherever possible.  Label items and storage bins and store them in a neat, easily accessible manner, and clean up any spills or stains that you discover during your efforts.  Before you know it, you’ll be back on track and ready for the brand new year.