I know the tree and decorations are not even put away yet but it’s time to think about getting organized for next Christmas. The first thing to do is start saving boxes. Every box that comes into your house that could possibly be filled with Christmas loot, find a home for it now. One thing I like to do is save shoe boxes. Shoe boxes are great for so many things but they are really wonderful for Christmas. The best part is you can wrap the top and bottom separately and then just put on the lid instead of taping it closed. You could also cover them with plain brown paper and give the kids Christmas stamps to decorate them with.
Another good idea for shoe boxes is to use one for gifts outside of your immediate family. If you draw names for your extended family everyone could fill a shoe box with items for the person on their list, this saves individual wrapping and is fun to open. Shoe boxes are great for kids toys that come in atomic bomb proof shrink wraps and have many pieces. You can save yourself and the kids some frustration Christmas morning by opening all those Polly Pockets or Hot Wheels cars and putting them in a box, ready to enjoy. The kids can also keep the box to store the new toys in, making cleanup easier.
Shoe boxes are good for odd shaped items as well socks and pajamas. Just about anything will fit in a shoe box. They can be saved and used for next Christmas or kept by the recipient for organizing their new treasures. Hailey has always saved everything. She has scraps of paper and buttons and cards. These things are important to her but unless she has an easy way to organize them they become a nightmare. Shoe boxes save the day!
Hailey has a nice collection of shoe boxes that haven’t been opened for years. When she is cleaning her drawers and things, stuff she doesn’t need to have in her room but wants to keep, goes in a shoe box. Later she may throw some of it away but in the meantime it is packed up, safe and sound, in a container that is sturdy and easy to pack away. It’s much easier to get kids to pack away their treasures than it is to get them to give or throw them away. In two years when they open the boxes they will laugh at the things that seemed so important at the time, and then get rid of most of it. They become a sort of time capsule, a snapshot of what was important to them, and a glimpse of how much they’ve grown.