The Christmas Closet: Celebrate an Organized Christmas Every Year!

The Christmas Closet:

Celebrate an Organized Christmas Every Year!

To create your own Christmas closet, you will need to figure out where you have some space that can be used strictly for Christmas items. With luck, a small, out-of-the-way place in the attic, basement or garage can be cleared. With a lot of luck, you have a small closet that can be completely cleared out!

The idea for a Christmas closet is to have a place that will hold all of the ornaments, odds and ends, wrapping paper, special holiday china, stored gifts, even the Christmas tree (if you keep an artificial one) and everything else that comes out only at Christmas time.

Our family is lucky enough to have a partially finished basement with four extra closets. One of these has become our Christmas closet. It isn't very large, but it is about four by eight feet. There are adjustable steel shelves along two walls, and a special wrapping paper rack with shelves above it on the third.

Though it will hold everything, we always do seem to find the odd ornament or two that escaped behind the couch, or a window clingy thing still on the glass. But, for the most part, everything is tucked safely away after the holidays, to await next Christmas. All in one place, out of site, and organized!

Creating Space for Gifts

Be sure when you are designing your space to keep at least a couple small shelves for gifts. Most people buy Christmas gifts throughout the year, and having a place to put them is essential to surviving Christmas come early December!

One shelf will be for all those little stocking stuffers we get on sale throughout the year. It can also hold generic gifts, those used as hostess gifts, something to wrap up for unexpected guests, presents for pets and so on.

The other shelf in your Christmas closet can be for gifts to be given to specific people. These are gifts that are going to be surprises on Christmas. I know - it is certainly not going to be a surprise if everyone knows there is a shelf here for that purpose, so...

Special Note: When you get home from the store, make a note on your personal gift list of what item you purchased, and for whom. Then, wrap and tag the gift before putting it in the closet.

Don't worry about ribbons and decorations for the packages just yet. All we want is to get it wrapped and tagged so we know who it goes to. Take the time to add personal touches to the package at a slow time closer to Christmas morning.

Once your Christmas closet has been designated and designed, this is about all you can do during the first year. After Christmas we will fill it up, and get it ready for next year's organized Christmas! This is one of my best secrets for relieving holiday stress every year.

What About This Year?

Choose a central area, like the living room or family room for this purpose. Set up a card table in the center to collect items you wish to keep which are broken or damaged.

Put items which belong together by room into separate areas of the room, so that each room can easily be decorated from a single area. This is the next best thing to already having your own Christmas closet!

As you find all of your Christmas items, you will create yet one more list. This is an inventory of all the decorations and other Christmas items you already have on hand. Don't forget to tuck these pages into your Christmas notebook!

Special Note: You do not have to keep inventory of individual ornaments or rolls of wrapping paper - you simply need a rough estimate of whether or not these items need to be purchased and how much of a given thing is already on hand.

Special Note: It is nice if you can make a special note if any given decoration has special meaning to you or anyone in the family. List such items seperately.

Put any broken or damaged items you wish to keep on the table - they will be repaired immediately. If you don't want to repair them, toss them in the trash. There is no sense in cluttering up a Christmas closet with items that aren't worth fixing right away. If you wish to replace them, add the item to your shopping list before you toss it - you won't forget that way.

What's Next?

Once all your lists are made, your Christmas items organized and in specific areas by room they belong in, and your repairs have been made, it is finally time to decorate!!

If you are doing this after the Christmas baking has been started, get out some glasses of milk and some of those Christmas cookies... Turn decorating the house into a holiday party!

Special Note: If you think you are going to need more help than you have family members to delegate to, why not consider hosting a holiday decorating party and inviting friends and extended family to help? You might enjoy this enough to turn it into a family tradition!

Start Stocking Now!

If you are like me, you also have gifts tucked in various nooks and crannies of the house already. Get these wrapped, tagged, and on the shelves in your new Christmas closet so that they are ready when you need to get them under the tree.

Tuck your wrapping paper, some tape, ribbons, bows and empty boxes in there, too. This way, as you finish shopping, you can get things wrapped and ready. No more staying up until 4 am on Christmas Eve - we are committed surviving Christmas with style (and organization!!) this year!

Now that the chores are finished and most of the decorating is done, everyone should be in the Christmas spirit!

Christmas Closet