4 Ways to Keep Gifts Organized This Holiday Season
With the holidays almost upon us, you might be starting to panic about your shopping list. It seems like it balloons every year; suddenly there are another five people to buy for. And if figuring out what to get everyone (and funding the shopping spree) isn’t stressful enough, then there’s the matter of wrapping and stashing the gifts until it’s time to hand them over. If you’ve been having nightmares about keeping everything organized this year, here are four steps you can take to keep the holiday chaos at least somewhat under control.
- Before your shop: Organizing gifts actually begins before you even possess them, with the creation of your shopping list. You can go old school and actually take pen to paper to jot down each person you have to shop for, plus at least one or two gift ideas for every individual. It might be helpful to divide recipients into categories, like Friends, Family, and Coworkers. Or you might want to separate them into sections based on what you’re buying for them—e.g., have one list for Target, another for Best Buy, etc. But if you do better with digital to-do lists, consider downloading an app to help like Santa’s Bag. You can use it to set a budget and number of presents for each giftee, then keep track of what you’ve purchased and what you have left to buy.
- When you start wrapping: Once you’ve completed the grueling task of Christmas shopping, next comes the second-hardest step: wrapping everything. Get all your ducks in a row by creating a gift-wrapping station a la this DIY project from Martha Stewart. The domestic goddess shows you how to organize everything you’ll need, including paper, scissors, and ribbon, using just a pegboard. But you can also keep things a little bit simpler by enlisting a large, plastic storage box instead.
- Pre-unwrapping-mayhem: Your gifts are hidden behind colorful sheets of paper; now what? If you have your holiday tree set up already, or any other central piece of holiday decor, cluster the gifts around it artfully. If you’re waiting a while to put the gifts on display, stow them away in a large plastic container or a big box to keep them all neat and tear-free until the big day.
- The aftermath: If you and your family or friends will be ripping into the gifts all at once on Christmas morning, prepare your living room for the chaos. Have a bag or box ready for discarded wrapping paper that can be chucked (or recycled, if your local center accepts it), and keep a pair of scissors handy for helping with the unwrapping process or snipping tags off of sweaters that will be immediately worn to a holiday party. Don’t leave all the cleanup until after you get back from whatever your typical holiday plans are; having the wrapping paper taken care of right out of the gate will make for a much more relaxing evening at home later on in the day. You can also save any wrapping paper that hasn’t been destroyed.
8 Apps to Help Organize Your Holiday Lists [PC Magazine]
Holiday Organizing [Martha Stewart]
WD’S Christmas Cleanup Guide [Woman’s Day]