Colleen and Cindy wish all our American readers and the good folk of Leiden (Netherlands) a very happy Thanksgiving

May you eat all you want and not gain an ounce. Now that would be something to be grateful for.

A little more Wisdom from Cindy

Photo credit http://gengame.net/

In the United States, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, the day that marks the start of the “holiday shopping season.” It’s a day of amazing sales and deep discounts. Some stores open as early as 4:00 am, with people staying up all night in the parking lot so they can be the first in the door, as the very best sales (aptly named “doorbusters”) are only available in limited quantities. In other countries, Boxing Day is similar.

Probably everyone who lives in the US is familiar with Groupon and other coupon sites. A few weeks ago, Living Social Deals offered a half-price VIP Black Friday shopping extravaganza at the mall nearest to my house. Normally $20, this deal for two shoppers was discounted to $10. What did you get for your $10? Parking in a reserved area of the mall, access to a VIP rest and refreshment area, and transportation on an electric cart to and from my car. I’m still marveling at the cleverness of the mall at making just shopping there something that you can pay for.

Here’s the take away message for Black Friday. If you want something, have planned for, made a smart determination that this item is needed by you, and you can afford it, feel free to purchase that item while it’s on sale. Otherwise, stay home. Rest. Enjoy your family. Eat leftovers. Watch a football game. Read a book. Just because the stores are desperate for you to purchase doesn’t mean that you have to be desperate to buy.

May your Friday not be Black

Today’s Declutter Item

Instead of risking getting trampled to death on Black Friday why not buy secondhand on eBay. You’ll still get a bargain plus buying preloved items is better for the environment. I recently sold these Peanuts Pez dispensers on eBay and made three people very happy. The buyer who was happy to add them to his collection. My son because the money went into his bank account. And me because they are one less item of clutter wasting space in my home.

Peanuts Pez sold on eBay

Something I Am Grateful For Today

My parents made it to me safe and sound and now I get to enjoy then for the next five days. 

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

My guest bedroom~ ready for guests at a moments notice.

With the holiday season upon us I think I will continue to focus our mini missions around having the house ready to receive visitors/guests. So we will concentrate on the areas they will be most likely to see and use.

Monday – Take a good look around your living room. The room where you sit back and relax in the evening. Does it inspire rest or does it cause feeling of claustrophobia. Declutter excess items that make the room feel cramped or require more dusting than you prefer.

Tuesday – Start a use it up declutter challenge on excess items is the bathroom that guests will use. Make sure there is enough space in there for guest to store their toiletries.

Wednesday – Declutter chipped crockery and glassware from the kitchen. Do you really want guests using those or even seeing them for that matter.

Thursday – If you have a large enough garage for visitors to park their car, now is the time to make sure the spare parking space is not cluttered with junk.

Friday – Is there enough space for guests to hang some items in the guest room closet. If not it is time for a clean out.

Saturday – Are your kitchen benches clear of clutter. With more people to cater for and serve up to you will need the space.

Sunday – Is your dining table clear of clutter and is there enough room to move around it freely. If not now is the time to prepare this area for your guests.

Once you get all these areas clear of clutter and ready for your guests to enjoy and for you to enjoy your guests, take a moment to think about how good that feels. Now make plans to keep it that way.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

Although my living room is always ready to receive guest at a moments notice, there are still more things in there than I prefer to dust. Most of them aren’t my things so I don’t have a whole lot of control over that. However it doesn’t hurt to ask periodically whether family members still what to keep certain things. I asked my son about the items pictured below (except the dog, it is was mine) and he didn’t feel the need to keep them any longer. They are all souvenirs of our trips to Europe. We have now learned our lesson about collecting souvenirs. I am happy to send them off to the thrift store and even happier not to have to dust them anymore.

Dust Collectors

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I would like to mentioned today how grateful I am for all the wonderful readers who contribute to my blog through comments. It makes decluttering all the more rewarding when we share the experience together. Last week Judy mentioned that she liked the Christmas “tree” branch I linked to in my Favourite Five and that she was going to adopt this idea herself this year. Judy was kind enough to send me a photo of her branch to share with you and here it is…

Well done Judy, I am loving this minimalist look. I think I will be making a new tradition of the Branch Christmas Tree.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Today for Simple Saturday I want to share two things with you.

Firstly I have been creative and come up with my new Christmas tree design. I thought I would run it past you to see what you think. It is minimal, inexpensive (I picked it up off the side of the road) and fits better in my home than the the big 6½ ft fake pine tree. If I decide I will continue with this tree tradition I will throw away the branches at the end of the season and pick up some new ones the next year. That way I don’t have to store it and each year it will be that little bit different to the last.

I could put this tree up for the forth of July, it is so American. There is a Starbucks decoration, two Seattle Mariner ones, a Seattle bauble, an American flag bauble, an Uncle Sam looking figure and another baseball character among the selection. Oh well they are all fond memories for us so why not. Perhaps I need to acquire at least one Australia themed decoration to even things out a bit. 😆

The second thing I want to share with you is a video from an Australian comedy show called Gruen Planet. Each week they set a new challenge for two advertising companies to come up with an add campaign to sell the unsellable. This week’s campaign brief was this ~ Christmas has become the holy day of consumerism, a day in which our rampant spending contributes to the rape of the planet. We need a campaign to stop this orgy of expense, to give Christmas the flick.

Both companies did an admirable job and even though it is meant to be all in good humour there is a whole lot of stark reality in both campaigns.

WARNING: Please do not play this video while children are present.

Link to video http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/pages/s3367882.htm

On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my five favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my five favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.

Fave Five Comments. Enjoy!

Ideealistin makes a good point here in a follow up comment to a question posted by Lynn who had asked for some helpful ideas on toy storage.

Everyone congratulate Felicity on a job well done. She shares her garage sale success story in this comment from Saturday.

Here is a great refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle story shared by Ann in this comment. Well done Ann you have certainly undergone a full reform from your cluttering days.

This comment from Carol certainly brings home the impact “hoarding” stuff can have on your children. The good news is it is never too late to turn this situation around.

I really enjoyed this comment from Becky about her minimal Christmas.

Fave Five Web Finds. Happy reading!

Like everything else this week, today’s five will have a holiday season theme.

www.statesman.com ~ Make this the year kids are really thankful

Thank you to Stacia for this link about pet safe holiday decorating. www.aspca.org ~ Pet care tips/Holiday safety 

Talk about breaking with tradition check out these groovy trees. www.work-killer.com ~ Creative christmas tree designs 

I think I have found my new Christmas tree or I will if I scour the neighbourhood and beg some one to let me cut a branch off their tree. Check this out www.apartmenttherapy.com ~ The modern minimalists christmas tree 

And last but by no means least I stumbled upon this link while trying to find minimalist Christmas post for you and what a gem this is. When we’re at home ~ Minimalist Christmas

Today’s Declutter Item

In keeping with today’s mini mission here are my recycled and/or handmade Christmas cards for the year. How is this decluttering you ask? I use the fronts of last years cards and a stash of card samples and craft supply that are cluttering up my craft room/office to construct this years cards. Once they are mailed that will be another small fraction of the overabundant craft supplies gone from my home for good.

Christmas cards sent = Less craft clutter

Something I Am Grateful For Today

My new organic Christmas tree (pictures for you tomorrow), lunch with a good friend, more rain and getting a head start on next weeks posts so I have more time to spend with my parents while they are visiting. Thanks Dizzy for your contribution.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

1. If you feel inclined to minimise holiday/Christmas décor, declutter to a point where you are comfortable with the quantity, the effort involved and the storage space required after the event.
2. Try to get as many people on board with the no gift giving rule as possible.
3. Give gifts of experience not clutter to those with whom you can’t avoid gift sharing. This includes children.
4. Try doing a secret Santa when there is going to be a large crowd together for Christmas, everyone buys and gets only one gift. The environment and your bank account will thank you for it.
5. Do as much pre-holiday preparation that you can now before the rush really sets in.
6. Don’t be presumptuous about how your family want to celebrate the holidays. Ask their opinion. You may be going to far more bother than necessary.
7. If you are having a crowd at your home this Christmas why not allocate everyone to bring a plate of food. It will lessen the burden of expense and effort on your part. It is never too late to start a new tradition if you have never adopted this practice before.
8. Start good holiday traditions while your children are young. Set limits on what you give them and introduce them to charitable deeds by encourage them to declutter their old toys prior to the holidays by donating them to children less fortunate than them.
9. Send emails instead of cards, you don’t have to go out to buy them, you don’t have to write each one individually (just copy & paste) and you don’t have to stand in line at the post office to buy stamps to send them. And to top it off polluting transport isn’t used to deliver them.
10. Don’t sway to popular opinion, do the holidays/Christmas your way because that is the best way.

Today’s Declutter Item

Today’s mini mission was to declutter kids toys to make way for the holiday gifts coming in. Look at me I am still decluttering my son’s old toys and he is 20 years old. It was a collection though, which can end up hanging around a bit longer the the norm. I am slowly but surely having success with selling them on ebay.

Snoopy toys sold on ebay $15.50

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Rain. It’s been a warm dry week so far and I was just thinking this morning that I might have to water the garden this afternoon. Well that chore is done and I didn’t even have to lift a finger.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

You can’t push a string…

Different people have different styles, styles of gift giving being no exception. In my family, specific (extremely specific) gift requests aren’t considered out of line. In my husband’s family, many gifts, all surprises, are the norm. Well, we all know what happens when people you rarely see or talk to give you “surprise” gifts, right?

It took me years of interacting with my in-laws before I realized that I could not control them, I could only control myself. (Some very obvious lessons are nonetheless hard to learn.) I started announcing in November that we would only be giving to charity, or that we would be giving only homemade gifts, or that we would only give food gifts. That way they knew what to expect from us and could chose to match our smaller gifts, or not, but they surely wouldn’t be surprised.  Over time, everyone has decreased their giving. Last year, each of the girls received a gift from their Aunt and Uncle, and my husband and I received a lovely box of chocolates. That was all, and it was perfect. My in-laws took the girls to the mall and bought them two gifts each. This worked for everyone because the grandparents knew they were getting something the children wanted and because the girls don’t go to the mall often (and certainly never with the grandparents, who live far away), so it was a big treat for everyone, even for Dan and I who got a few hours alone.

So how should you handle people who give differently than you would like to receive?

1. If it’s grandparents wanting to load up the kids, make your boundaries clear. You are the parent. Say, “No more than X gifts.” Or “She wants a X, but I don’t think it’s appropriate, so please do not purchase it for her.”
2. Or (one I used) “Do not buy any little plastic crap.” Yeah, maybe I should have said it nicer, but all those cute little impulse items are here one minute and gone the next – a waste of money and resources.
3. If it’s your girlfriends, suggest a meal out together or a trip to get your toes painted or something else that is fun and not material.
4. If it’s your family, suggest drawing names so that you only have to give a gift or two.

I think the biggest key is..

1.  If you’re changing your usual pattern, let those who will be affected know in advance. Now is not too soon. That gives them time to adjust too, and
2.  Remember that you can not change other people, you can only change yourself.

You can’t push and string, but you can pull it.

Today’s Declutter Item

Oh, if only making Christmas uncomplicated was as simple as pressing the Easy Button. Well you know what it isn’t that much harder, all you have to do is convince yourself and lay down as little ground work like Cindy suggests above. This button was a silly fundraising gimmick from Staple office supplies years ago and I must admit we did have fun with it for a while but it is now being passed on to a friend who also found it amusing.

The Easy Button, oh, if it where only that simple!

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I bought a nice little summer dress at the thrift store last week for $4 even though it was slightly too big. Today I used the skills my mother taught me and took it in on the side seams. The dress now fits perfectly and I am so pleased. I love it when you need something and it materialises, inexpensively and sustainably. 

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Last Thursday I got started on the Christmas decorating and I’ve got to tell you my heart wasn’t in it. Just the thought of cluttering up my living room sent chills up my spine. Mind you those chills didn’t last unfortunately because it was 7:30am and already 26ËšC  (79ËšF) outside. I was however determined to get this done so I could share my experience with you today in advance of those who will be performing the same task soon.

I have one large box of tree and table decorations, a large nativity scene and a 2m (6½ ft) tree. Not much in the big scheme of things but more than enough in my book. As I mentioned on Monday, earlier on in the year I had already ruthlessly culled. You can go back and see the photo of that decluttering effort on Monday’s post if you missed it.

The funny thing was then when I went to decorate the tree I had culled so many decorations that the tree looks a little sparsely covered this time. I am considering trying to swap for a smaller tree on Freecycle. Kind of weaning myself off if you like. The idea of having no tree at all just doesn’t sit well with me yet.

I managed to declutter even further while I performed the task of decorating. Just a few touches here and there was all I felt we needed. Below is a photo slide show of the entire process.

Here are some of my thoughts as I went through this process.

• The tree is too big for this house but I really don’t want to go treeless at this point and there is no way I am buying a new smaller tree. I’ll try doing a swap on freecycle.
• I love the look of the beautiful full-on Christmas decorating that you see in glossy magazines but it just isn’t sustainable or me.
• Christmas really lost its sparkle for me when I grew up and I could afford to buy things for myself. The sparkle returned to a certain degree when the children were little and especially when we experience our first winter Christmas but now the sparkle has gone again.
• Will there be grandchildren one day to bring back the Christmas sparkle and will I be sorry if I decluttered the tree altogether before then.
• When did Chirstmas become so much about the decorating and gifts and so little about the birth of Jesus.
• With that last thought in mind I feel inclined to keep my nativity scene out of respect even though I don’t have a good position for it.
• I like the festive feel of having some decorations around but I hate the space they take up in the garage for the other 330 or so days of the year.
• My husband made a comment that the corner was cluttered. Bah Humbug! He was right though.
• I like the idea of natural decorations but I am not going out of my way or to any expense to acquire them.
• Old habits die hard and although I want to keep it simple I still feel slightly like I am missing out on something.

Regardless of all my thoughts above my overriding desire is to enjoy a simplified Christmas without all the consumerism, fuss and bother. So long as I have my Christmas pudding, my hot lunch (even if it is 37Ëšc outside), a bowl or two of nuts and candy around and at least one person to share it with I will be happy.

If you aren’t sure what level you want to stop at when it comes to decorating take some time to think about what are your most favourite aspects of celebrating the holidays. Things that you wouldn’t what to do without and then consider what extras you really want on top of that. Don’t forget to consult the rest of you family.

Christmas comes but once a year and means something different to everyone and my advice is to celebrate it in whatever style suits you. If you feel inclined, declutter only what you feel comfortable with. And should you feel like going all out please try your best to be as sustainable as possible in the process.

Today’s Declutter Item

These are the items that were decluttered from my Christmas stash during my early pre-Christmas preparations last week. I will get them to the thrift store tomorrow so someone who is a keener decorator than I can find them and use them this year.

More Christmas items set aside for donating last week

Something I Am Grateful For Today

An unexpected call from a friend asking if I wanted to join her and another friend for lunch and coffee. I had already had lunch but I was keen to enjoy their company for an hour or two. Coffee ended up being a chocolate shot over caramelised fig gelato. What’s not to be grateful for in the combination.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.

This week at 365 Less Things we are launching a preemptive strike on the Christmas/holiday season. Time to do some pre-holiday decluttering and organising so when you break out those decorations, the guests arrive and the presents are opened, there is enough room to accommodate them. The more organised you are now the smoother the days will run when you are truly in the thick of it.

Monday – Minimise the clutter in the areas that your Christmas/holiday decoration will be adorning. It will save you effort when the time comes to deck the halls.

Tuesday -Study my uncluttered gift giving guides here and here to help you find uncluttering gift for your loved ones and to make suggestion of uncluttering gifts for yourself should anyone ask.

Wednesday -Have the, perhaps dreaded, conversation with the grandparents about giving gifts of experiences to your children so your home isn’t overrun with toys.

Thursday -Declutter the kids toy area to make room for the inevitable influx of new fun things. Regardless of how much you manage to contain the influx you will still need room. Kid will be kids and it is there job to have fun.

Friday - If, like me, you are decluttering your craft supplies now is the time to make your holiday/Christmas cards if you haven’t done so already.

Saturday – Start getting the guest room ready. Declutter any excess stuff in there to make it comfortable for those coming to stay. Make arrangement to borrow extra bedding if necessary for any overflow.

Sunday – Start having a “use it up” declutter of the freezer. Eat through all those double ups and half eaten packages so that there is plenty of space for the holiday food.

Good luck and happy decluttering

Today’s Declutter Item

I got a jump start on the holiday season months ago and have been saving this photo to share with you at the appropriate time. I think that time is today. This accounts for about half of the decorations I had, not including the tree. More reductions to follow.

I

Decorations decluttered earlier on in the year.

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Hubby and I had a nice long walk on Sunday afternoon. The weather was beautiful, the sun was beating down but the breeze was cooling. I love watching the ocean and checking out all the lovely building up above the beach. 

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

The October issue of Real Simple magazine reveals a grim statistic: 6,250 tons of landfill waste “could be avoided if half the kids in America traded Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones.” That the equivalent to the the weight of more than 3,000 mid-sized cars! Be sure and swap, sell or donate this year’s costume. Did you know there’s an official Halloween costume swap day? Of course it’s already passed, but you can mark your calendar for next year’s swap.

Photo Credit Product Spotlight.com.au

Quite a few of my readers have mentioned on different occasions that they have friends and relatives that give their children far too many “clutter” gifts. No matter how much they insist that this stops the gifts just keep on coming. There are many alternative gift ideas that you could suggest they choose. Unfortunately life sometimes gets away from us and when the time is nigh we can’t think of any suggestions to make to these very generous gift givers, that are a great alternative to clutter.

In the past I put together a list of alternative gifts with mostly adults in mind. This list is always available to view by clicking on Guides from the menu bar located above the photo at the top of my blog. When you get into Guides just click on Uncluttered Gift Ideas. Being as our theme for the week has centered around children I think now would be a great time to put together an uncluttered gift guide for children.

In order to do this I will get a list started on this post today and I would love for you to all contribute ideas via comments so we can come up with a great list that we can all refer back to when gift giving time comes around be that birthdays, bar mitzvahs, Christmas, Hanukkah etc. I am sure you all have some great ideas so please share them with us.

Please feel free to make comments also on the items I have begun the list with and the age groups I have split them up into. My children are now almost 21 and 19 and I may have lost my edge when it comes to this topic so I could really do with your help. This may be the case for the wonderful gift givers in your life also so if you are able to make alternate ideas they may be more likely to conform to your way of thinking.

Uncluttered Gift Guide For Children

Ages 0 to 5

• Clothing items
• Education fund deposits (They may not thank you now but they will later)
• Deposit it money into a bank account in the child’s name.
• Memberships to your local Zoo or Children’s museums, abortetum’s etc…
• A special outing (This could include anything from a food treat, a trip to the zoo etc)
• Paying for lessons (music, sports, arts, craft)
• Ingredients and special decoration for cookies to a four or five year old kid so that the kid could bake cookies with the parents. You could actually make an outing of this and take them to the grocery store.

Ages 6 to 12

• Money (To make this gift more special I used to make a clue based treasure hunt for my children and they loved it. I used those plastic snap together Easter eggs to hide the money in.)
• Passes to theme parks
• Education fund deposits (They may not thank you now but they will later)
• Deposit it money into a bank account in the child’s name
• Movie passes
• Educational software (Even though this is an item if looked after it can be easily sold on when grown out of)
• iTune credit
• Sporting equipement
• A special clothing item
• A special outing (This could include anything from a food treat to a ball game, ten pin bowling etc)
• Tickets to a Sporting event, concert…
• Paying for lessons (music, sports, arts, craft)

Ages 13 to 18

• Plane tickets to visit friends or family
• Education fund deposits (They may not thank you now but they will later)
• Deposit it money into a bank account in the child’s name
• Cell phone recharge
• Money
• Passes to theme parks
• Movie passes
• iTune credit
• Take-out gift cards (My daughter loved Starbucks cards at this age group)
• Sporting equipement
• Toiletries (You need to know the child well to get this right though)
• A special clothing item (My son is a skateboarder they wear through skate shoes far too often and they make a great gift)
• A special outing (This could include anything from a food treat to a ball game, ten pin bowling etc)
• Tickets to a Sporting event, concert…
• Paying for lessons (music, sports, arts, craft)

Ages 18 to 25

This age group may be a little older but in my experience they need useful gift more now than ever before. They are often still in college/University, moving out for the first time or just started in their first real career job and aren’t being paid much at this point.

• Money
• Movie passes
• Gas Cards
• Gift Cards
• iTune credit
• Cell phone recharge
• Travel credit (Bus/train passes)
• Sporting equipement
• Plane tickets to visit friends or family
• Education fund deposits
• Educational supplies (Book store credit, nice stationary, leather satchel etc)
• Take-out gift cards (My daughter loved Starbucks cards at this age group)
• Household items (Whether they have move out yet or not because it will happen eventually) (No uni-taskers please)
• Toiletries (You need to know the child well to get this right though)
• Tickets to a Sporting event, concert…
• A special clothing item
• Paying for lessons (music, sports, arts, craft)

Donation Gift Ideas

• Zoo Animals
• Pet shelters
• Kids Sport team equipment
• Food bank (You could actually go grocery shopping together to choose the food)

Cindy has also written some great blogs and left some great comments in the past regarding Children’s birthdays and birthday parties…

Day 252 Kids Birthday Parties

Day 257 Decluttering Kids Birthdays Part 2

Cindy in response to Day 338 ~ I have a large bin of gifts for the children to give for birthday presents… Read more

Today’s Declutter Item

I relinquished my iPod to my son some time ago when his died but surprisingly he didn’t want the pink case. By now I have come to the realisation I am never going to get the iPod back so I have sent the case to the thrift store.

Things that made me happy, made me laugh, made me feel grateful, fascinated me or I thought were just plain awesome.

• Winning $160 at bingo ~ I don’t normally play bingo but my Mum does and it is always fun to go with her when she visits and even more fun when we win.
• Managing to still churn out blog posts while I am busy with my visitors ~ I really hope that they have still been useful and interesting for you my faithful readers.
• I am just happy with life at the moment even if I have been really busy.
• My dad promises to take some great native Australian bird photos for me to share with you on my blog.
• Having lots of plans to look forward to over the coming weeks ~ Including my daughter visiting, going to the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, attending the ANZAC day parade on the 25th of April, a weekend in Canberra and a trip to NZ. My oh my, I had better get ahead with my blogging.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow.