Decorating for the Holidays
Decorating for the holidays can be fun! But it can be a big project. It all depends on how much you decorate.
Are you a go all-out – 7 trees kind of person?
Do you bake until the cows come home?
Does the outside of your house glow?
That’s great! But that can be a big project that may require a team to get it done.
Even though we preach living simply, the holidays are a time when many people pull out all the stops. We also love to decorate and bake and purchase (thoughtfully procured) gifts for loved ones too. So we are in the same camp here. Let’s celebrate! But what to do when the idea of pulling it all out is overwhelming? You call your friendly Basic Organization team to help. What’s the difference between working with organizing professionals as opposed to a decorator to do your holiday decorating? Glad you asked. We are organized!
I’d like to highlight the benefits of working with us to decorate for the holidays with a client story.
The Beginning
Our client “Holly” invites us into her home every year to help set the stage for a winter wonderland over the holidays. She loves Christmas decorations! I mean LOVES them. She has such beautiful things and we enjoy helping her create the holiday spirit in her home. She has everything needed to fill it with a wonderful array of holiday surprises. The first difference between working with a decorator vs an organizer for the holidays is we don’t suggest any purchases. We work with what you have. We’d like to think that we are creative but a decorator will beat us out on this point. If you need help creating your vision then work with a decorator.
We are a perfect fit for Holly because she has everything needed. She just needs more hands to get the job done in an orderly, organized fashion.
The Middle
Holly enjoys arranging her holiday decor by collections. I believe this highlights the uniqueness of each piece. She has a collection of Santas and a wonderful Christmas village. But wait until you see the beautiful decorations on the loft railing! AMAZING! But her largest collection is by far her many Christmas trees of various shapes, sizes, and materials. Bringing these out for display really creates a wonderland effect all over the house. Lucky Holly has no little ones with sticky fingers that would touch (or break) anything. Crazy enough, her dogs don’t seem to notice any of the holiday bling.
Arranging your holiday decor by collection will highlight the uniqueness of each piece. Share on X
The second difference between working with a decorator vs an organizer is WE ARE SUPER ORGANIZED. This decorating day is a true testament to how being organized makes things like “projects” run more smoothly. It just makes things easier! It also makes a project like this faster to complete.
We start the decorating day in the storage room, with a short discussion amongst the team about who’s responsible for what. Just carrying all the bins upstairs is time-consuming, but with the team in action mode, it doesn’t take much time. Before she knows it, Holly is knee-deep in Christmas decor and making decisions on how her collections will be displayed each year. We unbox and unwrap everything and make sure that all the bins get back into the storage room.
As the saying goes, ‘Many hands make light work”.
Don’t miss the video on this post.
The End
Of course, to be organized means that you must finish what you start. This means that we revisit this client in January to put it all away. Everything is reboxed in the correctly LABELED containers and rehomed on the shelves in the storage room. Last year we even organized the shelves! Now the shelves house the decor from a specific room of the house. This year it will be easier for the team to locate what goes where!
If you need help creating your own Winter Wonderland this holiday, give us a call. We can help you set the stage, quickly and simply with an organized holiday decorating day. Yes, Decorating for the holidays can be fun!
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Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
A fun read! I have also helped clients set up and put away holiday decorations but never on this scale. But if this gives a person joy – go for it. I do very little decorating for most seasons but I do put out quite a bit for Christmas – but only one tree
Jonda, this client doesn’t put up any trees, but she has a lot of Christmas decorations! I also don’t put out much holiday decor. I find as I get older I don’t have the need to decorate for holidays.
I love this idea for a new avenue of service in the organizing industry! It is so much fun setting up holiday decorations, but it is a tremendous job. Thanks for sharing.
Yes! We only decorate for a few clients, but we’d love to do more.
I have a client who hires me each year to decorate her tree. I find the process delightful, while for her it feels more like a chore. It is one of those “win-win” situations for me to come and do it. Also, we chat and catch up the whole time, an extra bonus!
How fun. Spending holiday cheer with your client.
What a fun post and video! Holly has beautiful holiday items. I can see how festive her home feels after you and your team worked with her. I enjoyed helping several of my clients decorate and disassemble/organize post-holidays when I was doing in-person organizing. I loved doing that, especially the decorating part. And when we’d put things away, we’d organize it to make the following year that much easier. It’s fantastic that you offer this service to your clients.
Yes Linda. Decorating for the holidays lets us put our creative hats on. We love it.
I’ve read lots of holiday-themed blog posts, but not covering this particular aspect. Good job!
Yes Janet. We’d love to do more holiday decorating, so I thought this would be a good way to encourage people to hire us.
It’s a wonderful idea, especially for folks who like lots of decorations but don’t have the time or interest to do it themselves.
Wow, that’s intense and takes a LOT of effort. WOW! I didn’t grow up in a “decorating” home; we had spaces that were for company only (where we didn’t enter with shoes) that we didn’t use or modify unless there were a party, and the only holiday decorating included a few school-room style ones for Halloween/Thanksgiving/Hanukkah that took one another’s place, successively, on the storm door (the glass door that goes in front of a wooden door in cold-weather places). It definitely looks festive and you guys did an amazing job. I’ve always assumed I’d be far better suited for packing away holiday decorations and helping downsize before it gets put up.
A few years ago, though, an elderly client of mine had hoped her family would help her decorate at Thanksgiving, but she’d injured herself and the family had moved Thanksgiving to someone else’s house, so she asked if I’d mind decorating for Christmas. Organized? I absolutely was. But it was like feeling my way in another language (though she seemed happy with everything I did). Most rooms, it was just a matter of symmetry and not putting too much in any one place, but when I had to put up a nativity scene, I cracked, channeling my own Jewish mother, “Come on, no Jewish mother is going to let camels near her newborn!” and my client lost it, giggling until I thought we’d have to get the oxygen tank! I’m so happy you are able to create this magic for your clients.
Thanks Julie. We love decorating for Christmas, even my Jewish team member loves it. Extra special – one year our clients husband played Christmas carols on the piano while we worked. It was magicial.