Ready for my favorite ADHD-friendly Christmas decorating system?
Decorating for Christmas can be an ADHD organizing nightmare. All those Christmas decorations adding more clutter to your already cluttered house. Making room for the Christmas tree. And where in the heck do you store those NON-holiday decorations you have out the rest of the year?
Talk about overwhelm! Too much stuff. Too many decisions. Too many extra things piled into an already overflowing life.
Decorating for the holidays is a huge job most people with ADHD dread.
A few years ago I came up with a brilliant, ADHD-friendly Christmas decorating system. The simple solution for organizing Christmas decorations. At least I think it’s a brilliant solution.
Ready for it? It’s really simple.
[NOTE: This system IS NOT for you if you’re one of those people who has your Christmas tree up and the house totally decorated the day after Thanksgiving and everything packed and put away by December 26. In fact, why are you reading this in the first place?]
The trick to making decorating for Christmas easier for ADHD is to break it down so you do a little bit each week. That means, as you put your decorations away for the year, you have getting them out next year in mind.
Though you put this holiday decoration organizing system together when you’re taking your decorations down after the holidays, I recommend you start thinking about it before Christmas. That way you’ll be all set when you need it.
Dana’s ADHD-friendly Christmas Decorating System
Step One – Go through all your decorations and GET RID OF anything you no longer like. Less is more when it comes to surviving the holidays with ADHD.
If you’ve got so many decorations your house looks like someone barfed Christmas all over it you’re just asking for stress and overwhelm.
Be brutal. If you don’t like a decoration get rid of it. I don’t care who gave it to you. Take sentiment right out of it. By keeping too much stuff you’re making life harder than it needs to be.
Step Two – Divide your remaining decorations into two groups. Christmas tree decorations and all the other decorations.
Step Three – Divide all the other decorations (the ones that don’t go on a tree) into three piles according to the week you want to put them out.
Step Four – You’ll need a number of bins with lids. Get ones that are large enough to hold a week’s worth of Christmas decorations. I use bins that stack because they’re easier to store. Remember to have lots of tissue paper or bubble wrap on hand to protect delicate ornaments.
Step Five – Now it’s time to label each bin. Get out a marker and on the outside of each bin write December 1, December 7, December 14, or Xmas Tree Ornaments, Tree Lights. I write the label on both the top and the side of the bin so I can see what is in the bin even when they’re stacked.
Step Six – Pack the bin according to the week you want to get out those decorations. For example, I have our advent calendars in the December 1 bin.
Step Seven – List all the decorations that go in that bin on a piece of paper and tape it to the inside of the bin or the lid. That way when you put the decorations away for the year you know what goes in which bin.
Step Eight – Next year when you’re putting up your Christmas decorations store the stuff you keep out all year in your Christmas bins.
There you have it. My sneaky system for making decorating easier and ADHD-friendly. Yes, it takes a bit of set up but do it once, decorating for Christmas will be easier for years to come. Sure to erase those Bah Humbugs from your holiday vocabulary!
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