January Depression = DECLUTTER!

I adore holiday decorating.
Putting away the decorations? Not so much. January can be pretty depressing after the months of pumpkins, cornucopias and jolly old elves.

Thankfully, I inspire myself to put Santa, Rudolph and Frosty away by using the opportunity to declutter. Making the home less cluttersome and more navigable makes me happy.

So how do I do it? Before I pack away the decorations, I take the enormous bins that hold the mangers and snow globes and zillion little gold lights and go around the house filling them up...with toys that my children have outgrown. Then I go to Target and buy brand new red and green colored mondo-bins on super post-holiday discount and I put the decorations in the new containers. This is also helps if I've acquired new decorations over the year and need more storage.

Now, I'm big on weeding out broken toys or giving away stuff which that the kids truly never use for play. But we're hoping for more kids someday and crossing our fingers that those beautiful Melissa & Doug wooden peg puzzles and Vivaldi-playing Baby Einstein thingamajigs will be used again. But if the toys and my womb are not currently in use, then room needs to be made in our limited space for the new toys that have accumulated.

And my storage room? Nicely color-coordinated with bins of red and green!

If you like my holiday decoration clean-up and declutter tip, then you'll love Right@Home. This new online magazine is chock full of the raddest organizing, design and cleaning tips. I love the section called The Big Cleanup which has sections on making each area of your home its best ever. And they have guest bloggers that are domestic diva moms who really know their home beautifying stuff.

Well, I'd better get back to putting the decorations away. Guess it's time to take down the Santa in the airplane inflatable in the front yard. Sigh.

This post is part of The Parent Bloggers campaign for Right@Home.