Clutter Busting Holiday Mission: Clean, Organize, Relax & Enjoy

Here we are at the end of our holiday missions. Hopefully you have found some inspiration in these missions and your holiday season is just a tad bit less stressful! If you have not finished your shopping, hopefully your list is not too great. If you are finished, stay away from the malls and the temptation to buy more!! This week we will be focusing on cleaning, organizing, relaxing, and enjoying this wonderful time of the year!

When I say cleaning, I do not mean that this is the week to deep clean anything! You merely want things presentable…not perfect!! This is certainly not the time to start a project. Do your laundry mid week and press any clothes (if needed) WAY before they are actually needed! Stock your fridge with milk and other necessities, buy plenty of bread, diapers, batteries, blank videotapes, Tylenol (for you and the kids), and anything else that you won’t want to be running out for at the last minute!!

Organize all your gifts by separating the gifts in bags or boxes as to where they are going. It would be terrible to forget someone’s gift at home! Now is also the time to place your bows on top of your gifts. Pack up all of your paper and gift-wrapping supplies.

Plan your Christmas breakfast. A great idea is a breakfast casserole that you make the day before and keep in the refrigerator until you put it into the oven in the morning. We always have baked goods for breakfast on Christmas morning. I take the breads that I made a couple weeks ago out of the freezer on Christmas Eve and they are all ready to eat Christmas morning. My daughter loves the Pillsbury type of cinnamon rolls and I always bake up a batch of those. The great thing about doing that is it smells up the whole house with the warm sweet smell of cinnamon and there is absolutely no effort on my part!!

Now is the time to relax a bit. Just because you are the parent does not mean that you should not enjoy the Holidays as much as the rest of the family!! Heck, you are the one who has done all the work!! Take lots of pictures and give tons of hugs. Tell the people around you how much you love them, as there are no guarantees when it comes to life. Remember how blessed you are. Don’t focus on what you did not receive rather treasure the things you have not lost! Merry Christmas!!

Betsy