Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Can we Declutter some Christmas To-Dos?! | Clutterbug Podcast #154

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

This time of year is hectic! Shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, cleaning, and so many parties!  Can we all agree it's time to declutter some Christmas to-dos? Can we just say "no" to some of the things on our list that aren't making us happy and filling us with joy?  In today's podcast, I share some easy ways we can simplify and declutter the holidays.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I want to talk about simplifying over the holidays of just simplifying your life in general and I feel like a bit of a hypocrite because my life is pretty insane right now. Hey clutterbugs, welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. I don't want to complain to you guys but I shouldn't use you as a therapist. But the truth is this time of year stresses me out so bad. It's a couple of weeks until Christmas and I'm never ready. I procrastinate. I procrastinate so many things.

It's also such a busy time of year for me because we have, I think, 10 Christmas parties coming up in December. We have 42 people to buy for. Most of them are done, thank goodness, but still, it's like obnoxious amounts of people to buy for. And unfortunately, all of these people purchase gifts for us. It's not like we can just not get them anything. Like, I would feel like such a jerk. It's just a lot. And because we always take time off between Christmas and New Year's, I have to work.

twice as hard as a kind of business owner, I guess. I have to have content prepared and edited and ready ahead of time so that I have stuff to go out while I've taking time off and after I've taken the time off so things are ready to go. And so I always feel really, really stressed out this time of year. And as a mom, as a woman, I don't know, maybe I'm being stereotypical and I hate doing this but I do. I feel like a lot of making Christmas awesome for your family falls on our shoulders, my shoulders. Not that my husband isn't great, he is. He tries, but he wouldn't know what to get people. I'm the one who always puts the list together and I'm like, can you get your dad something and here's some ideas for him? And I still end up shopping for his sister and his brother and his nieces and nephews and his mom and his

grandparents and deciding what we get our kids every year and he has some input but most of the decision making whether it's decorating the house what we're going to eat over the holidays what gifts we're going to buy what parties we're going to you know are matching Christmas pajamas there's just so much pressure it comes down to as the manager of the household I I am managing it and I'm running it and it's a lot to remember and it's a lot of decisions to make. And so I feel a lot of decision fatigue this time of year. I'm hoping, if you're listening to this, that you cannot relate. I'm hoping that you have found a way to really simplify the holidays.

So it feels just like a magical thing. I think the solution is just like anytime you're feeling overwhelmed in life, anytime you feel like you have to simplify, there's this technique where you pick one thing to take off your plate. So something that's really stressing you out and then add one thing to your plate that makes you feel relaxed or that, yeah, gives you some space, some breathing room. And so I have a lot of things. I don't know what I could take off my plate, but I have to take something off my plate because I can't do it all. I can't do it all. I shouldn't do it all. I shouldn't do it all. I shouldn't do it all. I think if I stayed up late and I worked extra hard and I really pushed through, I could make this happen.

But then I resent Christmas. And that's what's been happening year after year. I resent Christmas. I resent doing all these things for all these other people and not really feeling appreciated for it. But the truth is no one's asking me to do all these things. And what can I take off my plate? And what can I add to my plate that fills me up? What can I add to my plate that feels like those magical moments that make it worth it,

that don't feel stressful and like pressure and I have deadlines? What can I add that make me feel relaxed? And I'm going to talk about things that I'm going to do to take things off. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to take some things off and some things that I'm going to add in just a second. But I wanted to share a kind of story with you first. I don't want to bum you out. I usually want to do podcasts where I'm like sunshine and rainbows and positivity, but I'm not feeling that right now.

So I guess I want to be really honest with you. I went to the mall the other day and I have a lot of anxiety, so much anxiety on a regular day. And some of my triggers are people that I don't know. Busy spaces. Deadlines are definitely a trigger that make me really stressed out. But driving, I am so stressed out about driving. I'm a really bad driver. I'm very anxious. I suck at parking. I am that person in the parking lot who is never between the lines

and it is never on purpose. I'm just crap at parking. And so I'm in, I'm shopping with Izzy, my 16 year old. We're at the mall. I have a huge list. Like I carry around a binder like an insane person with all the people that I need to shop for and all the different Christmas ideas of things that I could get them. So I have my stupid binder in my stupid minivan. the stupid mall and it's ridiculously packed and there are no parking spots anywhere and i for some reason can't park on the left i can only park on the right i don't know why like i feel like i can't i can't park into a parking spot that's on my left side i can only pull into a parking spot on my right anyways yeah i'm weird and so i'm doing laps in this parking lot trying to find a parking

spot on the right that that I can drive into as a bad parker and I can't find anything and it's like 15 minutes and I'm panicking and I'm stressed and my poor kid is just like trying to be really mature so so that I'm not more stressed and I finally find a parking spot but I pull in crooked so as I'm backing out to try to straighten up and get forward so that people can actually open their doors and get into their vehicles because I'm completely parked like a maniac someone's honking at me because I've pulled back out and I'm trying to straighten out and they're laying on their horn and they're like, you know, screaming out the window for me to hurry up and I'm already so anxious and obviously this person who's screaming at me is ridiculously anxious too. But I had like a little cry

in the car. I felt like, I don't know, something snapped you guys, something snapped a little bit And then inside the mall, it's in people are like pushing and shoving. It's crazy packed. The lines are so long. My arms hurt from carrying all the bags that I have of all the different gifts. I still haven't bought anything for Joe. I can't find anything. All he wants is a hoodie. Of course it seems like a simple plain gray hoodie. It's the one thing I can't find up into every store twice. I'm kind of panicking now. And I look around at the faces of everyone else in this mall. And they're looking stressed and panicky and upset and anxious too, trying to like forcing ourselves to buy gifts to show people that we love them.

And we finally get back in the car. I'm not done the list. I'm feeling defeated. And my daughter says to me, I wish I was young again. And I was like, you are young. I mean, you're 16 year baby. And she said, no, I wish I was young enough that Christmas was still magical. I wish I haven't seen how the sausage is made.

That's what she said. I wish I didn't see behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz. Because now that I know how all these magical gifts come and how the dinners get made and how the parties get planned and how everything, the lights go up, like she has to help put up the Christmas lights now. She helped me decorate the house. Now that she sees the work, the effort, the stress that has to go in to making Christmas happen. She says it doesn't feel magical anymore. And man, did that hit me in the gut?

Because she's right. For me, it doesn't feel magical because I'm the one doing all these things, but also I'm making it not magical for my kids who now have seen behind the curtain, who now know how the sausage is made, who sees mom stressed out about gift giving, and who sees mom like working crazy hours and staying up, all hours of the night to try to get everything done so that we can go to these parties we really don't want to go to and give gifts to people that we really don't want to i don't want the gift from them they don't want the gift from me why are we doing this it's it's made christmas and i hope yours

isn't like this but for me it's taking away the joy and the meaning and the meaning and the purpose and whether you are religious or not, Christmas is about love. It's about family. It's about giving to others. It's about spreading joy and happiness and positivity. It's supposed to be all of those wonderful, beautiful, magical things. And instead, I'm going to quote the Grinch here, we're trying to find it in a store and we're trying to be perfect and we're trying to live up to some

insane expectations that social media gives us right i mean i made us matching pajamas this year again why did i do that why did i feel the need to do that and i thought about all these traditions i wanted to start and we wanted to do all of these magical things with just my family i'm like we're going to string popcorn and we're going to decorate the big evergreen tree in the front yard like what that isn't the type of stuff that I need to add that fills me up that's just adding more to my plate it's adding more to-dos and more work which is definitely not what I need so here's what we're going to do we're going to talk about some things that we can do to take stuff off of the plate what can go what can I give up what can I delegate this year

and I want you to think of your own life of any area of your life where you're feeling overwhelmed, where you're feeling like you're drowning. What can you take off your plate? And if it's your home and you're feeling stressed in your home and it feels so messy and you're cleaning all the time and why is everything a disaster, what can you take off your plate? It's stuff. It's stuff. It's the excess clutter that we can take off our plate.

but the same exact technique to simplify our home we have to use in our life. What is the clutter we can remove from our life? What can we take off our plate to give us some breathing room? And then what can we add that makes our life easier, like organizing solutions, right? We add a back of the door organizer or bins and baskets. Man, that just when we're a little bit more organized, it makes life easier. What can we add to our life that isn't a physical thing that can make our life easier and streamline our life and help us get organized? And we're going to talk about that in just a second.

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aura frame is the way to go. And right now, you can get $30 off their best-selling frames. Just go to auraframes.com forward slash clutterbug. That's a-U-R-A-Frames.com forward slash clutterbugs. These frames have been selling out every December, so get yours right now before they're gone. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, so let's talk about some things that I can get off the list and that you can get off the list. How can we declutter our lives? Not our physical stuff, home lives, but like our obligations, our to-dos, our promises that we've made to other people or ourselves. All of those things that are making us feel overwhelmed.

What can we take off our plate? What can we declutter? And I can only talk about my own life, things that I want to declutter and take off my plate but I want you to think of yours too. For me, a Christmas party has to go. We have a ton of huge combined family parties and then we have our intimate more immediate family parties too. And I think one of these extended families, I only see these people one time a year and yes, my mom and dad might be there, my brothers and sisters, but I'm going to see them again too. and I would rather, if I had to choose, I would rather see my immediate family, my parents, my siblings,

or spend time with my friends that I'm really close with than I would my great aunt twice removed, you know, that I never see ever. So it feels awful to say this. It does. It feels so wrong. So what is the big deal? What's one more party? but every Saturday and Sunday is filled and not only that Fridays are filled too and we have

multiple parties on the same day where the plan was to go early to one leave early and then rush over the other party and just stay later there why why am I doing this to myself something has to go the other thing that I'm definitely taking off my plate and taking off other people's plates too we have we call it the green family party so my stepfather's extended family party and every year we do a secret santa for our own children so we like purchase gifts for our kids that then Santa Claus gives to them you buy for your own children you wrap it you bring it and then we have a Santa that comes that hands out all the gifts and they're all about $20 and it's three more gifts I'm buying for my kids that I'm always like I want to make sure that they're not getting something that

other kids are going to be jealous of and also things that aren't so crappy that they're going to be jealous of other kids' gifts if this makes sense. And this year we couldn't find a Santa to come to this party. So my sister said, do you want to just, she put it on our Facebook group. Do you want to just hand out the gifts in a big pile or just do we want to have a family member play Santa? And I just said to her, can we just skip the gifts? Can we just like not buy gifts for our kids for this event? and just spend time together as a family and have it be an event where it isn't about gifts and it's just about eating delicious food and hanging out and chatting and catching up with people. And I put this in the comments on this Facebook post and immediately all my cousins,

aunts, everyone was like, yes, please no gifts, yes, please no gifts, please no gifts, please give me skip gifts, I don't ever want to do gifts again. And I was like, yes, we're all feeling. the same way but nobody wants to be the one to say it because we all think that everybody else is not thinking that if this makes sense a couple of years ago um my sister and i and and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law we were like can we just stop buying for each other like let's just not buy for each other anymore or buy for each other's kids and instead maybe we'll go all to the movies together afterwards and do that instead and just spend time together.

Best thing we ever did. My sister is actually the one that brought that up to me. And it was like a wait. I was like, yes, Jennifer, I don't want to buy for you and your husband and your kids. Don't buy for me. I won't buy for you. We'll just spend time together instead. Hands down, best things.

So I immediately reached out to my sister-in-law and brother-in-line pitched them the same idea. And they immediately were like, yes, all day. No more gifts, please. And so I guarantee there are people in your life. We're a little late now. So maybe not pitch the no gift idea now. But for next year that we can just say, can we just not?

Can we just skip the gift exchange part with each other and just still get together and have dinner and hang out and have the Christmas party and play games and enjoy each other's company? But can some of the gifts come off our plate? because honestly it stresses everyone out and some people love gift giving and if you're like but I love picking out special gifts for everyone cool cool too cool tight tight but there are people I guarantee you who are not like that and and just I just want to throw it out there because man taking that off your plate I'm so grateful that that was taken off my plate what else can you declutter right now now. What else can you declutter? Maybe you don't put Christmas lights on the outside of your house. No bigs. Nobody's going to care. Totally fine. Skip that. Declutter that. Let's put boundaries.

Let's give a gift to ourselves by saying like, we don't have to do it all. We can't do it all and still enjoy this time of year for what it's really meant to be, which is like this joyous, loving, giving time of year. We can't be present the way we need to be present and show up the way we need to show up when we're exhausted and when we feel taxed. We have to declutter the holidays. We have to declutter the obligations and the pressure and all of these to-does inside our head.

We got to order pizza instead of cooking turkey. Right? Let's do that. Doesn't that sound amazing? if it doesn't sound amazing that that's not the thing you want to declutter. It's the thing, just like run through a list of things. What can you take off your plate? And if the idea of taking that thing off the plate makes you feel,

you get a smile, you feel the corners of your mouth creeping up because you're like, heck yeah, I don't want to do that. That's the thing you need to take off. But what can we add? What can we add that fills us up? So I made this bucket list. It had all these things that I wanted to do that were traditions with my family. It was gingerbread houses, but making ugly gingerbread houses.

Like who can make the most ridiculous gingerbread house? And baking Christmas cookies with them and just, you know, listening to Christmas music while we did it. Man, let me tell you, I thought it was going to be magical and amazing. And it was fun, and I'm glad I did it. But it kind of destroyed my kitchen. And my kitchen's covered in icing and gum drops. And it's a mess. there's powdered sugar everywhere because I dropped the container.

And I was like, listen, this was cool and all. But we would have had the same bonding moment just, you know, buying a box of chocolates and sitting on the couch watching elf. Didn't need to do all that. Didn't need to do all that. So what can I add that does fill me up? For me, I can add some detox time. I can schedule some time.

that mommy sits in the hot tub, that I take a break, that I turn it off, that I don't have to be the one doing all the planning and all the wrapping and all the everything herself. What can I add that fills me up? Breathing room.

That's what I can add. I can schedule myself some time where it's like, listen, I know you're busy cast, but Friday afternoon, you're going to lay in bed and watch Hallmark Christmas movies. And that, that break, that space is going to mean that Saturday morning, I'm in it to win

it. I'm feeling refreshed. And maybe I'm not completely done and that's okay. I'm not wrapping. I'm throwing in gift bags. What can I add? Gift bags. That's what I can add. So I don't have to wrap everything. It's fine. It's awesome. I'm going to add in some grace. I'm going to give myself permission to take some shortcuts and to do things badly and get takeout because guess what it's good enough because me enjoying this time of year and being happy and present having a smile on my phrase is what is going to not only improve my holidays but it's going to bring back that magic for my kids too i don't want them to think that this time of year is stressful It's not what it's about.

It's not what it should be about. And so I want you, I hope listening to this, I hope you're not like, man, Cass, you're crazy. I already have my life figured out. I actually do hope you have your life figured out when it comes to the holidays. I obviously do not. I struggle. I try to do too much. But I want you.

I hope you're listening to this thinking, like, what can I take off my plate? What can I declutter? And then what is something that I can add that's going to fill me up? I went and got myself some like nail stickers that were like holiday nail stickers. And I'm like, you know what? I just want to put on a mud mask. I want to lay in my bed. I want to put on some Christmas movies.

And I want me and the girls to put stickers on our nails together. Like maybe that's a ridiculous tradition that we can do. You know? Just like give each other spa day and like give us our Christmas makeovers before the holidays. Ah, that makes the corners of my mouth curl up. That's why I know it's something I should add. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this super weird podcast. Happy holidays.

You guys, Merry Christmas. I hope that this year is magical. And I hope it's relaxing. And I hope that it makes you feel nothing but joy. And I can't wait to see you back here. I'm going to talk to you before New Year's. But New Year's is where we're going to hit the ground running. And we're going to take back your house.

We're going to get organized. And we're going to change your life. But in the meantime, take a breather, relax, and enjoy this time of year. Thank you guys so much for listening. And I'll see you next time.