When it comes time to take down the holiday decorations and clean up your place, it can be a daunting task (which is typically why so many of us put off taking down the decor until February). And the longer you put it off, the more you’re not going to want to do it and things will build up. This, then, makes it last even longer until you actually handle putting it all away. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But man, when you do finally clean house and put everything away for good, it feels really good to have it out of the way.
Just recently my parents came to visit and I realized it was finally time to clean up the place, put everything away, and get all of their decorations packed up. Seriously, just the fact that my mom let us use her decorations for Christmas was all it took for me to finally clean everything up and take stuff down. All because she was coming to visit and would probably like to get her decorations back home and stored away for the year.

And now, my place looks so much better. So much cleaner, more open, and a slightly emptier (which is fine). It’s almost directly impacted my mood, in a way that feels great. I don’t have to stress about packing everything up into storage or putting away all my gifts from the holidays. There’s no more clutter, things are more organized and in order, and now I can relax more once I get home (instead of feeling like there’s this impending sense of cleaning that needs to be done every night I come home from work).

What’s really helped move along the cleaning process is having the appropriate packaging supplies. By having all sorts of cardboard boxes, packaging tape, labels and markers, and other various items, I’ve been able to sort things away a lot easier and bundle like items up to put in the basement. Now, there are not so many things laying around the place scattered and waiting to be stepped on. Instead, they’re in cardboard boxes and labeled so that I know what’s in that box and where it all is.
It goes to show how having some extra packaging supplies on hand at all times makes things like cleaning, shipping, and moving so much easier. Without those things, I feel like I’d still have a clutter in my basement “storage” that isn’t any better than those items were strewn about upstairs.