How to Declutter Your Home in Time for Christmas

How to Declutter Your Home in Time for Christmas

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s a time for family, festive fun and seeing your loved one’s eyes light up as they open all their gifts. While the day itself is over in a heartbeat, the build-up to the main event is often incredibly stressful.

While you might be more concerned with food, gifts and what you’ll wear to greet your guests, there is one task that should feature on your to-do list: decluttering. After all, you need to make space for welcoming family and friends this festive season, as well as making room for all the new gifts and toys. 

Before you know it, the festive season will be here! So don’t delay, here’s how to declutter your home in time for Christmas:

Implement the rule of three

When it comes to having a clear-out, you need to be ruthless. So often, we hold on to things because they are sentimental or they “might be useful one day,” and before you know it, you are back to square one. 

Instead, tackle each room, one at a time and implement the rule of three:

• Things to keep
• Things to throw away
• Things to keep but store away 

Anything that no longer serves a purpose in your home is broken or can be used by someone else should be donated or recycled. Unless the item in your hand is something that you use daily or you can’t live without, you need to throw it out!

Don’t do it alone

Decluttering your home is not a small task. Having a supportive friend or family member to help you tackle the toughest areas will help you make room in no time. While you might look at each item with rose-tinted glasses, they will be able to be a voice of reason and get rid of the things that you are struggling to let go of. 

But more than that, part of the stress of having a clear-out is getting rid of everything once you’ve bagged it all up to go. So hire in the professionals. They will remove all your unwanted items straight from your front door and may even provide a house clearance service to boot. 

What’s more, they will take care of all the rest. From recycling to donating to responsible disposal, all of your items are taken care of in the most environmentally friendly way possible. Whether you live in Aberdeen or London, your local rubbish removals company are only ever a phone call away. 

Tackle your kitchen

Kitchens make the world go round when it comes to Christmas food! So make sure this crucial room is on your clear-out list!

Check all the sale by dates on all your perishables and non-perishables, and chuck out anything that is out of date. And don’t forget to reach right to the back of your cupboards – you might find some “antique” specimens that should be long gone! 

You might want to consider having an overhaul of all your bulky boxes too. Buy plastic or on-trend containers to store pasta, rice, grains, cereals and more. Anything that is non-essential can be kept short term in the shed or garage to give you more flexible kitchen space throughout the festive season. 

Make sure to label anything ambiguous such as coffee, sugar and flour, so guests don’t get confused! Whether you invest in a label maker or use stick-on blackboard style labels, there’s a world of labelling choices on offer!

Remember your fridge & freezer

Christmas is coming, so you need to make sure that you have enough accessible space readily available in your fridge and freezer to store all that delicious food. 

Just like your kitchen shelves, be ruthless with your chilled goods. Anything that has been frozen for more than three months needs to go! There’s no point holding onto uneaten food well into the New Year after all. 

Move on to the living room

For most of us, the living room sits at the heart of the festivities. It’s where you gather around the tree, play family games and make merry. 

So tackle your living room with the same approach as above. Hold on to the pieces you love, and either donate or recycle the things that are less precious or not used anymore. While something may be junk to you, your local charity shop may find a new home for your unwanted goods. 

Make sure your children still feel welcome to play. Find accessible storage for their toys, keep books down low on the bookshelf and show off all your family snaps and beautiful Christmas cards. 

To make sure your living room doesn’t become overcrowded too quickly, you may want to rethink some of your furniture. Unlike the rest of the year, the emphasis is less on the TV and more on your family and the tree. 

Re-arranging your room might also expose the pieces of furniture that don’t work in that space anymore – freeing up even more space as you go!

Bedrooms and guests

Christmas brings with it a whole range of superficial problems that we often don’t encounter for the rest of the year. While receiving new gifts and toys is undoubtedly a factor, housing all your guests, whether extended family or friends, is certainly a welcome problem most of us will encounter. 

So take time to declutter each bedroom, and consider:

• Storage: Can you make use of space under the bed? Do you need to invest in a new or secondhand wardrobe? Could you install some shelves?
• Clothing: While you’re having a clear-out, tackle your wardrobe. What clothes do you wear regularly? Are there any that haven’t seen the light of day for a year or more? Will you wear that dress or Tee again? 
• Furniture: Can you rearrange the space to make more room? Does that chair still work? Is it time to consider bunk beds or upgrade from a cot?

The countdown to Christmas has begun! Are you ready to declutter your home and get ready for the festive season?

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