The gift of giving
Happy New Year!! It’s 2025 and we are so grateful to know you and hope this season is bringing peace, warmth, coziness, and finally some calm! While we are coming off of a busy time, many of us are feeling the desire to cozy up in our homes (hibernate if you will), move slowly, eat nourishing foods, and be with our loved ones. And many of us are also feeling some motivation to simplify, declutter, and move some things out of our houses! Laura and I have enjoyed a bit of it all over this winter break and have been enjoying working through some projects slowly and simplifying our homes even more.
If you read our October blog, our goal for this holiday season was simplicity. Minimal gifts, simple days, and not packing our schedule full of events. And if you are one who celebrated gift giving and are now working on decluttering some of your toys or current items, we wanted to share some tips for slowing down, saving some energy, and making donating gifts fun for the whole family. Sometimes it is just TOO much to try to do it all before the holidays, and sometimes it’s best to enjoy re-assessing once life has slowed down a bit.
The gift of giving:
If you have children, you can never start too early with modeling kindness, giving, and empathy. Perhaps now that we have celebrated gift giving, you can do some decluttering now with your family.
Spreading joy through giving: Simply sharing with our kids the importance of giving to others, especially those less fortunate is important enough. Going through toys as a family, identifying what is no longer played with, and explaining that other children may enjoy it more, is a great way to get some of those toys out of your house before new ones come in. And of course this can be done all throughout the year and not just during the holidays.
Declutter and donate: Keep a bin in multiple spaces of your house that you call the “donate bin"." Start to become mindful as you are tidying and cleaning of items that you no longer use. If not, throw it in the donate bin. Once full take it to your local donation store.
15-30 minutes daily-The ole timer trick never gets old. Set your timer for 15-30 minutes (more if you enjoy!) and pick a few small places to declutter. Pick just one room or space at a time to avoid overwhelm and keep it simple. The timer keeps us on track and also helps us to feel successful at knocking something off our list. It helps develop habits and routines, and before you know it, your home slowly starts to feel and look better. It’s amazing what small daily habits do for our homes and minds.
Happy 2025!!