Great idea! Unfortunately I have so much wrapping paper, gift bags & tissue paper that was purchased end of season that I won't have to buy another roll until the end of my lifetime 😂. I guess it's time to go through them once again.
I stopped buying them. More and more food shops are using brown paper bags and now I use them for gifts, then I'll add a seasonal/occasional drawing or a sticker, maybe a ribbon if I have some around (mostly from gifts I've got)
Originally it was"be kind...rewind" for videotapes that you rented :) Another great video from my new favorite channel. Thanks for the call to sanity!! :)
This year I'm using the new year as an excuse to finish up important stuff I've been meaning to do for a long time: getting my financials sorted, house decluttered(and actually out of the house) and finally hire a plumber.
OMG I agree! I am so over ‘it’s the new year’ let’s get it done now & go into the year on a better foot not wait till ‘the new year’. I’m going another cull through the house because no matter what we just keep accumulating crap! 5 kids, different ages & we moved so I am still figuring out this space. Love following your journey.
The cackle that ERUPTED out of my at first sight of that skeleton...🤣 It also reaffirms to me that my one true goal for 2025 is to acquire one of those 12 foot tall skeletons for the front of my house and decorate it for every holiday.
Im ready and prepped to start my first go around of the KonMari method Dec 1st. Thanks to your blog and videos, i finally have all my notes and thoughts together, plan of attack in place, supports set up and sheets formated for tracking. Im so ready and confident, even if i get derailed or demotivated i know how to get back on track.
Remember how, when you would go Christmas shopping in department stores, the sales clerk would ask if you wanted a gift box for that shirt? My mother always saved those boxes! In 2019 my sister and I were helping to clear out our parents' basement because they were preparing to move to an apartment. We all had a good laugh when we found gift boxes stamped with the Gimbels logo - they were from, at the latest, Christmas 1986!
Excellent advice and spot on! Each year I do less and less. I never did "decorate" the whole house - just the room with the tree. Finally, after many years, I donated the "big" tree several years ago and replaced it with a small tree that can sit on a table. It's already prewired with lights. I don't even put ornaments on it. Not sure if I will bring it out for this year. The other week I did buy 3 plain wreaths for the 2 front windows and the front door. I like my home to feel calm when visitors drop by for a cup of tea and a plate of freshly made scones. (I did buy a new table cloth.) Wishing you and your family Happy Holidays and all the best in the New Year! 🎄
I had the very same thought of replacing my 6 ft tree with a smaller one for ease of storage 😊. Unfortunately, at this point I can't justify getting rid of a perfectly good tree 😂. Maybe some day when my tree gets all beat up & needs replacing 😊.
I’m so scattered that I literally forget what my goals were from the beginning of any given year until I run across a random piece of paper or a page in a pad of paper that I wrote them on. 🤪
Ornaments are my favorite Christmas decorations, and gifts. it makes me think of friends and family members of my childhood. Give my siblings had her on box of ornaments or boxes. And when we move it out they came with us. My kids each have their own ornaments in that will go with them when they leave the nest. And then they will have ornaments to put on their own tree it's always great to see my kids hanging childhood ornaments of mine the little Barbies and photo ones when I was the same age as them.
I’m single & live alone & put loads of lights & decorations up around my house, including Father Christmas loo seat covers. Even tho it takes a lot of work it’s still worth it & it makes my house so Christmassy & cosy. With cards, I keep special ones in archival page protectors in a lever arch file/ring binder. I’d love to have someone to go & see Christmas lights with, like in London but it’s not much fun on your own. I love your trees, especially the tinsel. Do you find that not many people in the US use tinsel these days? To me, tinsel makes a tree look extra special.
Short list: -guilt over unfinished goals -expectations for how things "should" be -toys/hobby items -unwanted decorations -excess wrapping supplies -unused kitchen items -old batteries and chargers -outdated media -unwanted gifts -"just in case" gifts -holiday cards & your card list -your schedule
I wish Thanksgiving was in January I stead of November. After seeing how Europeans start celwbrating and preparing for Christmas starting right after Halloween it just makes sense. You get an entire month to prepare whereas in America we must first prepare for Thanksgiving and then right away all the Christmas stuff MUST BE PACKED INTO ABOUT 3 WEEKS! Plus if Thanksgiving were in January it would give us something to look forward to during that incredibly cold and boring month lol. I just want to get in the Christmas mood and not feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. It's no wonder I get a cold sore or very sick come January 1st. I'm worn out!
Omg you’ve been in my house again and no I still haven’t decluttered a single card from this house or from home. I have them all. 🤭🤣 I’ve attach too much emotion to things 🤷♀️ Thanks as always for all the tips and advice. Have a great week. Mary, Joes wife 🙇♀️👏👍💪🙏💐🐕🦺
I'm moving into my own flat in the New Year (getting my keys on January 10th) so it's basically been both the perfect and worst time to declutter for me 😅
Hey a nice wrapping paper tip I haven't tried it but get a very large box and wrap the outside of it. As you unwrap presents everybody can just toss the wrapping paper into the box it looks nice and pictures instead of a trash bag... And it also limits the sea of wrapping paper. 😊 We usually just use garbage bags my husband is pretty on top of opening presents and then throwing out the wrapping paper right afterwards. He keeps us in line. 😂
What a lovely idea. My family use to have a garbage bag on hand for the wrapping paper. Now days, the adults in my family don't trade gifts anymore as we all have everything we need or can buy ourselves. Only the children receive gifts 😊. For my family, the holidays now is about spending time with each other & catching up 😊.
We don't send Christmas cards, I think for the first year we did then we just didn't bother again. I've kept old Christmas cards (I'm always having the "I'll use that as a craft, I'll make my own Christmas card with that") I've never got around to using them,. However, I have got back into my crafting and I am planning on actually using them (I'm giving myself till next Christmas and if I haven't used them they are going to go). I have the same problem with gift bags, I have bags and bags full of them as I keep everyone that comes into my house, but my mam has gotten into the habit of asking if I have one the right size or right pattern before she thinks about going to buy one which I'm sooo happy about. Especially since I don't actually use gift bags it's my husband that uses them as he can never be bothered to wrap haha. Oh wrapping paper... I can't remember the last time I bought wrapping paper... My husband bought me a massive roll of brown parcel paper a few years ago and I use that for EVERYTHING, Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, wedding, christenings, new babies... everything. Best thing about it is I can make it unique by adding a little extra to it, eg. for fathers day this year I wrote all over it memories that I had growing up with my dad, a few years ago I covered all kids Christmas pressies with left over pom poms for snowflakes or Rudolph's nose, but it looks just as nice when left plain with some string or ribbon wrapped around it.
I’m sorry, I love the idea of decluttering and all that, but I absolutely despise electronic Christmas cards. Please, either send a real paper card or just forget it. The electronic form is just so impersonal. It ranks behind the Shutterfly type impersonal. I made this on my computer and printed out 100 of them with just signatures cards that everyone sends.
I wasn’t suggesting you send everyone a digital card, just to consider it for people from your distant past. Also, not everyone despises them. I’ve received really lovely cards via email with beautiful images and a thoughtful message. Sometimes an email, with photos and/or updates, is even more personal than just sending a physical card.
Yes, it's very concerning. America has a big consumerism problem. I'm trying to be more intentional about what I ask for and what I give for Christmas. If someone doesn't like a gift I gave because it didn't cost enough money, it's on them. Christmas giving is about the thought behind the item.
I've been avoiding your videos recently Laura...Definitely not because of you, its an act of self sabotage on my part like "If I dont watch any decluttering content, I can pretend it doesn't apply to me" 🫠 But its time to face the music. I've got some clutter ingress, not masses, but it's weighing on me and it needs dealing with. 💪
@HowToGYST 100% Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey! I'm pretty minimalist already so most people wouldn't look at my home and think "clutter", but I can just feel the weight of a little too much stuff having come in over the last year. I'll sort it. I listed 2 chairs on Ebay today so I've made a start.
I only buy gold coloured wrapping paper. It does every occasion a gift is required & I don't have to store multiple rolls. A freedom feeling!!
I've started doing something similar, buying paper (if I need it) that can be used for any occasion.
Hi from N. Ireland 😊
Great idea! Unfortunately I have so much wrapping paper, gift bags & tissue paper that was purchased end of season that I won't have to buy another roll until the end of my lifetime 😂. I guess it's time to go through them once again.
I stopped buying them. More and more food shops are using brown paper bags and now I use them for gifts, then I'll add a seasonal/occasional drawing or a sticker, maybe a ribbon if I have some around (mostly from gifts I've got)
Originally it was"be kind...rewind" for videotapes that you rented :) Another great video from my new favorite channel. Thanks for the call to sanity!! :)
Bonus points for you! ⭐️
Be kind rewind. ❤ Love the new take. Blockbuster would be proud.
This year I'm using the new year as an excuse to finish up important stuff I've been meaning to do for a long time: getting my financials sorted, house decluttered(and actually out of the house) and finally hire a plumber.
A really great time to tie up loose ends.
You starting this video next to a scarf-bedecked skeleton is my favorite part of the holiday season so far 😀!
Jack likes to be the star of the show. 😂
In Australia, the 26th of December, we have Boxing Day. It's the day people used to box up unwanted Christmas gifts and give them to charity.
Ah, I always wondered where the name came from! Love it. 😁
We have Boxing Day in the UK too. Great day for relaxing & eating leftovers, including Branston pickle.
OMG I agree! I am so over ‘it’s the new year’ let’s get it done now & go into the year on a better foot not wait till ‘the new year’. I’m going another cull through the house because no matter what we just keep accumulating crap! 5 kids, different ages & we moved so I am still figuring out this space. Love following your journey.
The cackle that ERUPTED out of my at first sight of that skeleton...🤣 It also reaffirms to me that my one true goal for 2025 is to acquire one of those 12 foot tall skeletons for the front of my house and decorate it for every holiday.
Im ready and prepped to start my first go around of the KonMari method Dec 1st.
Thanks to your blog and videos, i finally have all my notes and thoughts together, plan of attack in place, supports set up and sheets formated for tracking. Im so ready and confident, even if i get derailed or demotivated i know how to get back on track.
Remember how, when you would go Christmas shopping in department stores, the sales clerk would ask if you wanted a gift box for that shirt? My mother always saved those boxes! In 2019 my sister and I were helping to clear out our parents' basement because they were preparing to move to an apartment. We all had a good laugh when we found gift boxes stamped with the Gimbels logo - they were from, at the latest, Christmas 1986!
Excellent advice and spot on! Each year I do less and less. I never did "decorate" the whole house - just the room with the tree. Finally, after many years, I donated the "big" tree several years ago and replaced it with a small tree that can sit on a table. It's already prewired with lights. I don't even put ornaments on it. Not sure if I will bring it out for this year. The other week I did buy 3 plain wreaths for the 2 front windows and the front door. I like my home to feel calm when visitors drop by for a cup of tea and a plate of freshly made scones. (I did buy a new table cloth.) Wishing you and your family Happy Holidays and all the best in the New Year! 🎄
I had the very same thought of replacing my 6 ft tree with a smaller one for ease of storage 😊. Unfortunately, at this point I can't justify getting rid of a perfectly good tree 😂. Maybe some day when my tree gets all beat up & needs replacing 😊.
I’m so scattered that I literally forget what my goals were from the beginning of any given year until I run across a random piece of paper or a page in a pad of paper that I wrote them on. 🤪
😂 Been there! Or coming across them a few years later and being like, "Oh, I still didn't do that". Oops! 😅
I used to joke that I have a lifetime supply of gift bags and tissue but I don't really give too many gifts so it might become a generational supply!
Same with me 😂.
Awww Jack! ❤😊 Always a good sport he is. Looking festive!
Ornaments are my favorite Christmas decorations, and gifts. it makes me think of friends and family members of my childhood. Give my siblings had her on box of ornaments or boxes. And when we move it out they came with us. My kids each have their own ornaments in that will go with them when they leave the nest. And then they will have ornaments to put on their own tree it's always great to see my kids hanging childhood ornaments of mine the little Barbies and photo ones when I was the same age as them.
Pre-Christmas declutter! Love this idea, Lara!
Get out all the old stuff before a bunch of new stuff comes in. 🫣😅
Love seeing u . ☘️🎄 Love your answers to many of my problems …
Merry Christmas 2024 and Happy New Year 2025
I’m single & live alone & put loads of lights & decorations up around my house, including Father Christmas loo seat covers. Even tho it takes a lot of work it’s still worth it & it makes my house so Christmassy & cosy.
With cards, I keep special ones in archival page protectors in a lever arch file/ring binder.
I’d love to have someone to go & see Christmas lights with, like in London but it’s not much fun on your own.
I love your trees, especially the tinsel. Do you find that not many people in the US use tinsel these days? To me, tinsel makes a tree look extra special.
Short list:
-guilt over unfinished goals
-expectations for how things "should" be
-toys/hobby items
-unwanted decorations
-excess wrapping supplies
-unused kitchen items
-old batteries and chargers
-outdated media
-unwanted gifts
-"just in case" gifts
-holiday cards & your card list
-your schedule
your tree is excellent !
Another great video Laura - thank you. Simplifying life, particularly over the festive season, just makes all the difference 🤩
I wish Thanksgiving was in January I stead of November. After seeing how Europeans start celwbrating and preparing for Christmas starting right after Halloween it just makes sense. You get an entire month to prepare whereas in America we must first prepare for Thanksgiving and then right away all the Christmas stuff MUST BE PACKED INTO ABOUT 3 WEEKS! Plus if Thanksgiving were in January it would give us something to look forward to during that incredibly cold and boring month lol. I just want to get in the Christmas mood and not feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. It's no wonder I get a cold sore or very sick come January 1st. I'm worn out!
BE KIND, REWIND!😂 I definitely like "UNWIND"😊 Thanks for all the inspiration & encouragement❤️♾️❤️
Be kind, rewind! Bonus round for me! And I STILL have my old Nokia and Blackberry phones
I still have my old Nokia too. 😁
Just on my way to drop of 3 big bags at the charity shop!
WUHOO!
Yay!
Omg you’ve been in my house again and no I still haven’t decluttered a single card from this house or from home. I have them all. 🤭🤣 I’ve attach too much emotion to things 🤷♀️ Thanks as always for all the tips and advice. Have a great week. Mary, Joes wife 🙇♀️👏👍💪🙏💐🐕🦺
I'm moving into my own flat in the New Year (getting my keys on January 10th) so it's basically been both the perfect and worst time to declutter for me 😅
How exciting!!!
Hey a nice wrapping paper tip I haven't tried it but get a very large box and wrap the outside of it. As you unwrap presents everybody can just toss the wrapping paper into the box it looks nice and pictures instead of a trash bag... And it also limits the sea of wrapping paper. 😊 We usually just use garbage bags my husband is pretty on top of opening presents and then throwing out the wrapping paper right afterwards. He keeps us in line. 😂
What a lovely idea. My family use to have a garbage bag on hand for the wrapping paper. Now days, the adults in my family don't trade gifts anymore as we all have everything we need or can buy ourselves. Only the children receive gifts 😊. For my family, the holidays now is about spending time with each other & catching up 😊.
Great to see Jack as your side kick 😊
He stays in my office now, as my supervisor. 😂
Be Kind, Rewind.
Long live the video store!
Thanks for the video! We have the same star on our tree! I do an adult Frozen theme.
We don't send Christmas cards, I think for the first year we did then we just didn't bother again. I've kept old Christmas cards (I'm always having the "I'll use that as a craft, I'll make my own Christmas card with that") I've never got around to using them,. However, I have got back into my crafting and I am planning on actually using them (I'm giving myself till next Christmas and if I haven't used them they are going to go).
I have the same problem with gift bags, I have bags and bags full of them as I keep everyone that comes into my house, but my mam has gotten into the habit of asking if I have one the right size or right pattern before she thinks about going to buy one which I'm sooo happy about. Especially since I don't actually use gift bags it's my husband that uses them as he can never be bothered to wrap haha.
Oh wrapping paper... I can't remember the last time I bought wrapping paper... My husband bought me a massive roll of brown parcel paper a few years ago and I use that for EVERYTHING, Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, wedding, christenings, new babies... everything. Best thing about it is I can make it unique by adding a little extra to it, eg. for fathers day this year I wrote all over it memories that I had growing up with my dad, a few years ago I covered all kids Christmas pressies with left over pom poms for snowflakes or Rudolph's nose, but it looks just as nice when left plain with some string or ribbon wrapped around it.
*nods*. Good thoughts. 😃👍
Love your sweater Merry Christmas you filthy animal😂😂😂😂
A classic. 😂
I asked everyone in my household what traditions and foods they look forward to at Christmas time. We will ditch anything nobody cares about.
Excellent idea! No point holding onto things just because they're "tradition" if no-one actually likes them.
Take some
Of the holiday gift bags to donate when you drop off excess Christmas decorations. You can use the larger bags as a donation bag.
Perfect!
Be kind rewind...wasn't that a Blockbuster jingle?
❤
Be kind, rewind.
Hi
I’m sorry, I love the idea of decluttering and all that, but I absolutely despise electronic Christmas cards. Please, either send a real paper card or just forget it. The electronic form is just so impersonal. It ranks behind the Shutterfly type impersonal. I made this on my computer and printed out 100 of them with just signatures cards that everyone sends.
That's how many store-bought cards are too, though. Buy a box of 50 or whatever. Sign them. Mail them. Not personal at all.
I wasn’t suggesting you send everyone a digital card, just to consider it for people from your distant past. Also, not everyone despises them. I’ve received really lovely cards via email with beautiful images and a thoughtful message. Sometimes an email, with photos and/or updates, is even more personal than just sending a physical card.
Only impersonal if you make no effort at all to match the card to the recipient?
I love digital cards. I don’t need a physical one to know that someone thought of me.
I'm scared of the amount of crap influencers are showing every season now. Those amazon hauls while the planet is on fire.
Yes, it's very concerning. America has a big consumerism problem. I'm trying to be more intentional about what I ask for and what I give for Christmas. If someone doesn't like a gift I gave because it didn't cost enough money, it's on them. Christmas giving is about the thought behind the item.
I've been avoiding your videos recently Laura...Definitely not because of you, its an act of self sabotage on my part like "If I dont watch any decluttering content, I can pretend it doesn't apply to me" 🫠 But its time to face the music. I've got some clutter ingress, not masses, but it's weighing on me and it needs dealing with. 💪
Baby steps. You'll be so proud of yourself when you're done, or even making progress. And imagine the weight that will be lifted from your shoulders!
@HowToGYST 100% Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey! I'm pretty minimalist already so most people wouldn't look at my home and think "clutter", but I can just feel the weight of a little too much stuff having come in over the last year. I'll sort it. I listed 2 chairs on Ebay today so I've made a start.
Yes, we each have our own thresholds. And even those can change over time. What was acceptable to me years ago is not acceptable to me now.