Awesome Photo Blanket

Look At The Photo Blanket My Boys Got For Me!

My four oldest boys couldn’t stand to wait until Christmas Morning to give me my gift. They were so excited to give me the photo blanket they  had made for me.

I couldn’t believe it. They started unfolding it, and as soon as I saw there were family pictures on it.. the tears started flowing. As I’m sitting there trying to take it in, of course one of my first reactions was to grab my camera and then my phone and take pictures of it. lol (Truly a bloggers legacy).

They worked hard to make sure this photo blanket was perfect, picking up events from the time I met Dave and beyond. They worked hard to make sure that everyone was in the same amount of pictures evenly. They originally had our serious family photo for the bottom right pictures and then decided that our “goofy” one was perfect.

This photo blanket is one of the most awesome gifts I’ve ever been given. Isn’t it great?

I’ve had several of you ask where they got this photo blanket. I’m not actually sure where they got this exact throw, but I’ve seen them in a couple different places.

Walmart has them. The one that seems the closest is a 50×60 size that is 100% cotton. It says you can have up to 30 photos on the “Photo Collage Woven Throw”.  It also looks like you can customize them with a title. It can also be washed in cold water.What it says right now on the site (1/12/13) is that you can buy one and get one free ($99 cost for one).  I have no idea how long that deal goes on, but you can check. Obviously they must do it once in a while.

Hopefully that is helpful to you. Thanks!

 

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English Toffee Recipe

Who Doesn’t Love English Toffee?

by Amy Trauntvein

The holidays are right around the corner and for me that means baking and lots of it, and homemade holiday candy tops the list!  Peanut butter balls, dipped pretzels, almond joys, and caramels, clusters, turtles….  But my favorite homemade treat is my grandma’s recipe of homemade English Toffee.  For years I  just let my mom and grandma make it while I enjoyed eating it thinking it was WAY too complicated and difficult to make, but then my husband and I found ourselves moving across the country with our then 3 (now 4) children and if I wanted any of this wonderfully delicious treat at Christmas time, it was now up to me to make it.  ACK!!  I thought for sure I was going to ruin it the first time I tried, but you know what?  It really was easier than I thought and it turned out perfect!  So now I’m going to give YOU the recipe and show you how you can make and enjoy your very own English Toffee and wow your friends with your culinary smarts!  And one other awesome thing about this recipe, you don’t need a candy thermometer to make it!  Score!  Ready?  Here we go!

English Toffee

• 2 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 lb butter
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup

Topping

• 12 oz chocolate chips or good quality chocolate chopped up
• 2 cups chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts or pecans) Purely optional.

Yes, 1 lb of butter is correct.  I never said it was light and healthy, did I? But there IS one secret to successful toffee and that is do not leave it alone.  Period.  You need stay at the stove because it must be constantly stirred and watched. If you think you can run upstairs and fold a load of laundry or go answer the phone while it cooks, before you know it, you’ve got a big burned mess.  It turns quickly and you need to be present.

First, you need to get your topping ready before you start cooking the toffee.  Chop the nuts, I used pecans for this recipe.  I chopped one cup more finely than the other for the topping.  One cup will go into the toffee (if you desire) and one cup will go on top of the toffee and chocolate.  Take one cup of nuts (the coarser chopped) and sprinkle onto an un-buttered cookie sheet

Chop up your chocolate and toss into a microwave safe bowl. Or if you are using chocolate chips, do nothing.  Here’s my chopped chocolate and the 5 lbs. of chocolate I buy every year to make candy.

My daughter wasn’t real happy about modeling it for me.  I really do go through almost all of it every Christmas making candy so it’s worth it to me to buy good quality chocolate.  No, we don’t eat it all ourselves.  I give most of my treats away to lucky recipients for the holidays!

Now you’re ready to start cooking!  Melt butter in a large non-stick pot on med/med high heat (do not brown).  Add sugar, water and corn syrup and mix well.

Bring to a rolling boil and continue stirring.  This is what is should look like.  I’m showing you so you can see the difference between the color of when it starts and and when it is finished…

Continue to boil while stirring until it turns the color of a brown paper bag (about 15 minutes).  See the bag and the toffee?  At this point it will start to pull away from the sides of the pan.  Let it cook for another 2 minutes stirring constantly.

Take off heat and pour onto the cookie sheet.  I forgot to sprinkle mine with the nuts so I poured them over the top and pressed them into the toffee.  It still worked just fine.

Now for the chocolate.  If you are using chocolate chips, just pour the chips evenly onto the hot toffee and let melt.  If you are using chopped chocolate, toss into the microwave and heat in 30 second increments on high while stirring in between until melted (it took me 60 seconds total).  Pour chocolate onto (still hot)toffee.  Spread chocolate evenly and top with remaining nuts.  Let cool completely.

Once cooled, break into pieces, enjoy the deliciousness and bask in the glow of the compliments you will receive!

Thanks for joining me and I hope this tutorial had helped you get over any qualms you may have about candy making. It really is easier than you may think!  Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Love to all!  ~Amy

 

 

 

 

 

I have been married for 22 years to my awesome hubby, Todd and we have 4 equally awesome kids who keep my young! Our favorite thing to do together is travel. I enjoy gardening and puttering around my yard. I am very active in my church and am currently serving the children, and I love volunteering at my kids’ schools doing whatever I can to help the teachers and staff.

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Ride the North Pole Express Train!

We Loved The North Pole Express Train Ride!

We ventured down to Nelsonville, Ohio on Saturday evening Dec, 4th, 2010 to ride on the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway, on the North Pole Express train ride.  The setting was perfect, a nice peaceful snowy night.

It was about an hour and half ride for us from the Columbus area, so Dave, the triplets and I  left plenty early since it was snowing. We figured we would have time to go into Rocky’s and shop around and eat dinner before the train left at 7pm. We arrived around 5pm and found out we didn’t have as much spare time as we thought.

I wanted to get pictures while it was still light out, and then was also given a tour by Bob of the train before everyone got on.

There were so many cars… I am thinking 10. Several of them were so similar that you wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart other than decorations were different colors. There was one up front that had a pot belly stove going, another one (that we sat in) that had higher back seats. The one the kids thought looked the coolest was the double decker train car. Bob was explaining a lot of the history to me. How most of these cars were used in Chicago.

We went over to Rocky’s, but evidently there were a lot of other people who had the same idea as us… so we went to eat at McDonald’s. We were told it would be a good idea to get back close to 6pm if we wanted to get a good seat on the train. The ride was sold out! There were 537 people on board. We did get back at 6pm and the kids had gotten their PJ’s and robes on.

Before the train started at 7pm, I went through a few of the other cars to get pictures. I asked parents before I took and pictures of their children. Here are a few of my favorites:

This little girl was so darling, I just couldn’t get enough of her.  I think I could have snapped pictures all night of her. She just seemed to me to be the poster child for The Polar Express, or as our ride was called… The North Pole Express.

They started serving the hot chocolate and cookies soon after we left. I felt bad for the hot chocolate man…. he needed a much bigger pitcher for it, or someone to bring him refills. He would only get a few rows filled and then would have to run a few train cars back to refill the pitcher.

We called the cookie man…the cookie elf. He had a cute hat on and followed behind the hot chocolate man. He also had some extras….so came back through a few times (oh darn…. we had to have more than 1 cookie!)

They passed out bells for all the kids….but us adults couldn’t hear them ring. I don’t get it?  LOL

We had the Hobo come through and tell everyone not to tell the conductor where he was. He came back through double checking with the kids to make sure they hadn’t told. Mine thought that was hysterical, they were telling him that they did tell on him.

After we got back from our ride, we could go across the street. At the Nelsonville Commons Park they had an ice skating rink set up. They told us skate rental was free with our train ticket so the kids decided to go skating. (hint…grab their gloves out of the car before you head across the street). Here they are skating in their pajamas having a great time… was on the other hand loved standing by the fire can….warming up! lol

 

You can check  Hocking Valley Scenic Railway for times and dates. You can also find them on Twitter at @hvscenicrailway and Facebook

One thing I would suggest if you have little ones. Send someone on the train to get your seats and hold them for you. Keep the little ones off the train until closer to the departure time. After they have already been on the train for an hour, then the hour and half train ride gets to be a little too much for some of them. On the way back the natives were a bit restless. (But keep in mind this was at night and they couldn’t see the sites outside. During the day you might not have as much of that).

Disclosure: I was given the tickets for my family and myself to ride the North Pole Express.  But the pictures, video and opinions are completely my own.

This post was originally posted on my Explore Ohio with Sandy site.

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Labeling Christmas Gifts

How to Keep Christmas Gifts a Secret

We often want to wrap the Christmas gifts prior to Christmas Eve (although I do know a couple people that don’t wrap anything until Christmas Eve), but you know that the shape, size or weight of the gift will be a dead give away?

Maybe your kids aren’t as interested as mine were/are but they like to check out all the gifts under the tree prior to Christmas. I remember my brother and I spending all kinds of time under the tree looking at the boxes that were ours and trying to figure out what they were.

There are times that if I have a “dead giveaway” gift, such as a DVD or CD, then I will put it in a larger box, so you can’t tell what it is. I don’t always have the boxes or inclination to do this though. One nice thing about the smaller gifts like that is that they don’t take up as much wrapping paper, and you can often use scrapes to wrap them.

I came up with this system when my four boys were young. We have done it every year and after I married Dave, we have used it for my step children also.

Make Up Goofy Pseudo Names.
Make up fake names for your kids and label the gifts that way. You have to make a key for yourself (and don’t lose it!!) ahead of time. If you have 4 kids I pick out 8 names. I give them each 2 names so they will have no chance on figuring out their gifts. It may look something like this:
1) Joe – Dasher / Mary Poppins
2) Drew – Batman / Spiderman
3) John – Snow White / Elf
4) Tim – Belle / Hulk

Don’t make them gender basis either. Give the boys girl characters and the girls boy characters. That will throw them off even more!
My boys have been used to this since they were small. Dave’s kids just started it 5 Christmas ago when we were first together. They think it’s great and keep asking if we are going to do the “names” again on the presents.
That is my job today, to wrap gifts and come up with the code list. (That’s the hardest part for me coming up with 16 fake names)

Then on Christmas morning you announce what their pseudo names are and hand out the gifts.

Black Friday Shopping

Organizing for Black Friday Shopping

Are you a Black Friday shopper? Do you set your alarm for 3am and have the drive in the dark and sometimes snow. Standing out in the line that you can’t believe is already THAT long? If you have never experienced the craziness…you are actually missing some fun.

I always like seeing The Salvation Army bell ringers out, although I think at that time in the morning and with those crowds, they don’t come out until it’s safe. lol

  I don’t shop every year on Black Friday am, only if there are things that it will benefit me and I am in the right frame of reference to do so.

But I love to do it and usually make it about 75% of the time.
But I think once you get yourself on the road (the getting up is no fun), then you feel like you are off to tackle a battle and its really fun.
I usually go to Walmart because I would rather wait inside..thank you very much. They just have all the “door busters” covered up and you are guessing at which big covered thing in the middle of the aisles is what you want. Then at the given time of the sale there is supposed to be an employee by each one…they tear them off and everyone starts diving for them. I have never been in a situation where people are literally fighting or pushing or calling names. I know it happens, but usually everyone is friendly and tend to help each other out. You are there on the same mission.
But it is easy to get caught up in the frenzy and buy too much. You may go with one thing in mind, but if you don’t have your shopping trip planned you may walk away with oodles of things you really didn’t budget for or you may walk away without any of the deals you went for.

Before you go

1) Make your list on Thanksgiving day with the sales ads in hand. If you know the
layout of the store, mark down a map of where you plan to go.
2) Plan which stores you are going to go to and at what time (plan early for
your first store). Some stores match prices so you can take your K-mart ad into
Walmart with the exact same item and if there is a given price (you can’t use a
percentage off, they won’t honor that)during the hours of the sales, they will
match that. (Check to make sure your store matches prices)
3) Get to your store early (everyone else will too) Make sure you have your list
with you AND the store ads. (keep them in a folder)
4) Go for your most important item first. Then try your best to stick to your plan.
5) Try to resist grabbing the last ticket for that 52″ big screen that you don’t
need or want just because you are in the right place at the right time.
6) Go light hearted and plan to have fun. Having a positive attitude can make
your experience an adventure instead of a disaster!

Organizing Mission Monday Link Party – Week 50

Christmas Ornaments

Do you get new ones each year? Buy a special one for the kids or your family? Are they dated?

When the kids were young I used to get them each a new ornament each year. I wanted them to have something for their trees when they got older. So far, I still have most of them. lol I do think my two oldest have taken some of their ornaments the last few years to have on their own trees though.

Over the last several years I have just gotten a new “family” ornament. I used to find them at the craft shows and would have our names and year put on them. But the last couple years I’ve not been able to find someone who makes them when I go to the shows. This year and I think last I didn’t even go to any craft shows.

I’ve found a kiosk in a local mall that has really cute ones. As my family has grown (with four step children and now a daughter in law) it has become more difficult to find ornaments with enough spots for all of us.  I hate to say it, but I had to get what I’m sure is a “grandparents” ornament this year. But… with Dave having white hair and I wear the reading glasses… it worked. ugh

Here are a couple others we’ve had the last couple years.

2010

2009

2008- I just did the kids we had at home this year.

Link up to My Linky Party

I’d love for you to share your Christmas DIY projects, decorating and recipes,  but as always you can link up any organizing or cleaning or DIY post to my link party.

You can find the link for my button on my top “Buttons” Tab.
1) Link to your specific post – not your blog
2) Please Link back to my blog with my button or link (link just above underneath my button)
3) I’d love if you’d follow me on google and/or FB. The google is new and I’m trying to build it
4) Blog post related to Organizing or Cleaning or DIY or decorating
5) No sales pitches or web sites.
6) If I feature you I will use one or more of your pictures with a link back to your blog.
7) Feel free to link up more than 1 post.

Looking for other link parties? I have a whole list of them. Thumbnail via day above and keep scrolling down to find a more extensive text lists by day on my link party list. If you aren’t sure how to link up… see my link party tutorial here. It is simple. If You Are On A Reader and Want to View All the Great Link Up’s on this post please Click Here.
This party will be open until December 25th, 2011

Organizing for Christmas

Starting Early is the Key

There is a lot to do the month of December, so much that most of us can get really over whelmed.  Here is a list of things that I need to do.

Step One – Make Your List

1) Take Family Christmas picture
2) Order Christmas cards
3) Write Christmas letter
4) Send out cards
5) Shop for gifts
6) Decorate the house
7) Decorate the tree & inside
8) Wrap gifts
9) Schedule Christmas parties & events
10) Plan for family over night
11) Plan Christmas eve dinner & Christmas morning breakfast
12) Plan for five December kid’s birthdays
13) Travel to Bentonville for work

Step Two: Schedule each event

Use your calendar or paper and write down your timeline of when you plan to complete your project.

Step Three: Follow your list

Key – Start early.

We took our family Christmas picture at Thanksgiving when as many of my family members as were able, were home.

I just ordered our Christmas picture and they will come next week.

Shopping – I used to have my shopping completed really early, but not the last few years.   I just started my shopping this weekend. I didn’t go out for Black Friday shopping (another tradition that I didn’t do this year) but I did go out this weekend.  I still have a lot to do, but will try to have most of it completed by next weekend.

Wrapping – I normally don’t wrap as soon as I get the gifts. There are times I end up wanting to return something because I find it at a much better price or find something I like better. But I do wrap once I have my shopping completed.

We don’t have a Christmas party here, but we usually are invited to a few, so we have to be sure to get them on the calendar. Since we have all five of our kids birthday’s that still live at home, in December – there is more planning in respects to that.

The real key to having things go smoothly is planning
Don’t  wait until the last minute and don’t be scared to ask your family for help.

 

 

Organizing Mission Monday Link Party – Week 49

Christmas time!

We are moving into the Christmas season! Decorations, Christmas carols, lights and cooking!

What is your favorite recipes or projects for Christmas?

There are years that I don’t feel inspired the month of December for the holidays. It is almost like it comes up too fast or something.  But this year we have our decorations up this weekend and I want to enjoy the entire month!

We also have five birthday’s this month in our house, so it is a full month of celebration!

Link up to My Linky Party

We are going into December, Christmas month! I’d love for you to share your Christmas DIY projects, decorating and recipes,  but as always you can link up any organizing or cleaning or DIY post to my link party.

You can find the link for my button and also my “Proud to Be Featured Button” on my top “Buttons” Tab.

1) Link to your specific post – not your blog
2) Please Link back to my blog with my button or link (link just above underneath my button)
3) I’d love if you’d follow me on google and/or FB. The google is new and I’m trying to build it
4) Blog post related to Organizing or Cleaning or DIY or decorating
5) No sales pitches or web sites.
6) If I feature you I will use one or more of your pictures with a link back to your blog.
7) Feel free to link up more than 1 post.

Looking for other link parties? I have a whole list of them. Thumbnail via day above and keep scrolling down to find a more extensive text lists by day on my link party list. If you aren’t sure how to link up… see my link party tutorial here. It is simple. If You Are On A Reader and Want to View All the Great Link Up’s on this post please Click Here.
This party will be open until December 25th, 2011

Five Steps to Help Organize Your Christmas Morning

Do You Have Christmas Morning Craziness Going On At Your House?

 

Paper everywhere….boxes with pieces and parts laying half opened…dog’s wearing bows that got stuck to their fur? Sound like a typical Christmas morning at your house?
So how many Christmas days have you NOT had to try and find something in the trash that probably got thrown out?
Either that card with money from Aunt Ethel or the back of the new toy that Jimmy got. You KNOW it here somewhere but, now it is gone.

There are a few things that might help you cut down on some of the craziness Christmas morning.

1) Get several black trash bags. Station them around the room so that everyone has access to one for their trash. Immediately after opening their gift, have them throw just the paper away.

2) Have one place each person places their opened gifts near them.

3) If you know that your family members are getting gift cards or cash, then have a large colored envelop that they can place their gift cards or money in that has their name on it. You can pass those out after they receive their first one.

4) Have one central bag if you keep the ribbons and bows to recycle. The kids can have fun tossing the bows your way.

5) You can also use white trash bags and have them out in case someone wants to open a new toy that has many pieces and parts. They can put the extra pieces in the bag if the box gets torn apart too much to use. Then make sure that all trash throwing adults KNOW that white trash bags DO NOT go in the trash.

Try these methods and see if your Christmas morning can go a little smoother with clean up being much quicker.

Labeling your Holiday Storage Bins

I worked with a client the other day who gave me some insight. She has MS and has trouble getting around. She also has oodles of Christmas decorations. I looked around at all her beautiful displays and asked if she had decorated herself (because I had a hard time picturing this much of a creativity side of her husband…no offense. LOL) She said, “No…I just direct.” I thought how frustrating that must be. To have the desire to do so many things in life and have a disability or disease that doesn’t let your body do what your mind wants to.
Then she shared with me something I have seen before, but never thought to be used in this way. She took a picture of her decorations up and displayed the way she likes them (last year or the year before I think) and posted that picture on the bin with those supplies in it. Brilliant!
Each person helping her just brings that bin up and knows exactly where and how to put the decorations.
So simple but most of us would never have thought to do so.
This is a fantastic idea for any of us to use. In the spirit of Christmas or other holiday, if you know someone who has troubles getting around themselves, help them do it this year! Take a picture close up and one a little further back (to see exactly the location) of their decorations. Help them to load just that set up or two in a bin and post the picture on the outside.
Love it! Thanks Becky!

Organizing after Christmas

Use Christmas as a great time to Sort!

Christmas is over and you have lots of new memories, presents along with bags of trash, boxes and things out of place!
I think this is one of the reasons that we get the bug to get things cleaned up and organized. It can also add to the sadness that can feel after all the excitement and anticipation is over.

Grab a white trash bag (for donate) and black trash bag (trash). As you are taking the clothes to put away in your drawer, take 3 minutes for each drawer and quickly go through and pick out the things you have not worn in over a year, or that is too tight or too big and load into the white bag. If it’s torn then put it in the black bag to throw away. If you are seriously going on a diet and realistically think you can fit back into some clothes within the next 6 months, then make a pile for those clothes to go into a bin. Label that bin with a date for 6 months from now and if in 6 months you are not close to getting into them, donate them.
If you have 6 drawers then you have just gone through your dresser in less than 20 minutes.
One way to get through some sorting without taking all day and being too overwhelming.

The Stockings were hung by the chimney with care….

The Stockings were hung by the chimney with Care..In hopes that St. Nickolas Soon would be there.

Just a few stockings hung! The rest of the mantel is not decorated yet…one thing I am behind on. We had planned to be in another house by now, so many of our things were packed to move. I have not gotten all the decorations out this year, but will get a few more out to do the mantel.
Things don’t have to be perfect. I am not stressing over the fact that I do not have all my decorations out. We have lights outside, the tree up and a few of our favorite Christmas decorations out. You know what…I don’t think the kids will notice or even care. We aren’t having any big party here this year. My Dad and his wife and my brother will be over and if they have complaints….oh well.
I think we get so concerned with what we think we should do in other people’s eye that we can ruin the fun for ourselves.
I worked yesterday on the goodies that I make every year. We have the the gifts bought and wrapped. The Christmas picture and letter went out on time. We will have a wonderful time even without the whole house decorated.
I am going to enjoy my Christmas time with my family and not stress that the decorations aren’t perfect. I hope you can do the same this Christmas and we should all remember that Christ is the reason for the season and that this time is to be enjoyed with family, and not ruined because we are stressed.

Labeling Christmas Gifts

Labeling Christmas Gifts  so No Guessing presents Before they are Opened!

I don’t know about you, but we wrap many of our gifts and put them under the tree before Christmas eve. Then we bring out the rest of them after the kids have gone to bed. How do you keep your kids from being able to figure out what certain give away shape and size gifts are? I have been using a plan that I heard years ago and it works great!

Make Up Goofy Pseudo Names.
Make up fake names for your kids and label the gifts that way. You have to make a key for yourself (and don’t lose it!!) ahead of time. If you have 4 kids I pick out 8 names. I give them each 2 names so they will have no chance on figuring out their gifts. It may look something like this:
1) Joe – Dasher / Mary Poppins
2) Drew – Batman / Spiderman
3) John – Snow White / Elf
4) Tim – Belle / Hulk

Don’t make them gender basis either. Give the boys girl characters and the girls boy characters. That will throw them off even more!
My boys have been used to this since they were small. Dave’s kids just started it 5 Christmas ago when we were first together. They think it’s great and keep asking if we are going to do the “names” again on the presents.
That is my job today, to wrap gifts and come up with the code list. (That’s the hardest part for me coming up with 16 fake names)
Happy Wrapping!

Holiday Decorations

Holiday Decoration Storage

Is Your House A Mess At Holiday Time?

Storing Holiday Decorations

What do you do with all those Thanksgiving, Christmas decorations, Halloween ghost and goblins, Easter baskets, New Years Eve and 4th of July decorations? They can take up a lot of storage space (especially Christmas if you are anything like me). But stores are gearing up and selling a lot more decorations for all holidays and it is easy to jump into the decorating phase. I saw a house this Halloween that had more decorations and blow up characters and lights than you usually see at Christmas.

**You need to make sure you have the room to store them if you buy them.

 

Clear Colored Plastic Containers work best.
I suggest that you look for the clear colored containers they have out for that holiday. I think these are great!! I can go down and immediately find my Halloween decorations because they are the ones in the orange and black (clear orange) containers. Of course they are still labeled..but it makes it so easy. My Easter containers are pink and Christmas is red and green. Again I still go for the clear over solid non-see through bins. So if you can’t find the colored clear ones, then just get clear. Being able to see what is in the at a glance is time saving!
So before you buy any more decoration, make sure you have the room to store them, then find clear colored bins to store each separate holiday in. Still label it and getting out decorations will become a very simple thing!

If you realize that you do not have the storage space for the decorations, that you have decorations in many different areas of your home (due to lack of adequate storage)… then what you more than likely need to do is to sort out your holiday decorations into what you really need each year and what you haven’t used in several years.

Decorating for Holidays

Is Decorating for Christmas -Fun Or Stressful?

Christmas Decorating

Christmas lights and trees, candles, Santa mugs, stockings, garland, ornaments….ahhh the Christmas decorations! The time is almost here! Usually this is a time that is really exciting and fun. The expectations of getting out the Christmas decorations and decorating the house is something that children and adults look forward to – right?

Where are the Christmas Decorations?

But what if you aren’t sure where all the decorations are? Are they together? I seem to remember seeing a box of ornaments under Jimmy’s bed sometime this year…I think. Katies stocking may still be in her room from last Christmas, I don’t think she ever put it away. Does that sound familiar?
How about this – How in the world am I even going to put a Christmas tree up? There is literally NO room for it. If I move the pile that is in the corner where the tree used to go, I don’t know what to do with it. I can’t move it to the basement – that is full. The garage is over flowing, we can’t even get the car in there. You can’t walk into the spare bedroom!! Does that sound more like you?
Either of these situations (and there are many more) are VERY stressful. There are expectations for Christmas. Having family over, sitting by a fire and enjoying family time. But if you have too much of a mess to decorate or have people over – then you are going to feel even more stress than most people do at the holidays.
So what do you do?
Depending on how much “stuff” you have and need to move you need to find some help! If its family or friends or hiring a professional organizer – you probably can’t do it yourself. Don’t plan on being able to tackle all of your house before the holidays, that is probably an unrealistic goal. But sit down and think about how much you NEED to do so that you can have family over or if nothing else, get some decorations out for your kids.

Start Small
You just have to start out bit by bit. Pick one little corner, or chair or table top and start there. You need to be tough with yourself at this point. Do you REALLY need it? Especially at the holidays there are a lot of people who could use your things. They would actually get used and be appreciated. They wouldn’t be stuck in the back of a room unused for years collecting dust.
Many people feel like as Professional Organizers we will come in and throw everything out. We won’t do that – but if you have 3 times the amount of stuff in your house than can fit – then you have to be realistic and do the math….something has to go to be able to change your home.
Get out your bags for donate and trash. You can feel like Santa and fill up lots of bags to give to other families to help them. That may make it easier to part with things that you feel an attachment to.

Win Win
It can be a win win situation. By decreasing your “stuff” and making room for the holidays to come into your house and make your family and yourself happy – you are increasing the little bit that many families have. This year is worse than any other since the depression for families. Many, many people have just been laid off and need your help.