I am looking forward to some parts of Christmas–spending time with my family, eating good food. But the gift-giving parts, not so much. Not that I have a problem spending a little dough on my loved ones. But this year especially, I am not looking forward to being on the receiving end.
Back in January, I made a New Year’s resolution to declutter one item a day for the entire year of 2013, and I am pleased to say I’ve kept that resolution. A lot of it was finding ten things to tie me over for the next ten days, then ignoring the resolution for a week and half. And sometimes, I would count four identical items as one day’s item, while other times, I’d put the multiple identical items I wanted to ditch on different days, depending on how likely it was I’d fall behind in my resolution.
But yeah, December is a third over, and I’m finished for the year. You wouldn’t know it to look at my place. I kept all my crap tucked away where no one could see it, so visually it hasn’t changed all that much. But if you were to walk into the Good Will down the street from my place? It would be, like, House of Me.
What really has changed is my feeling about “stuff.” I don’t want “stuff” for Christmas. The thought of it just viscerally turns me off. I want tickets to a show, or a gift card to a spa, or something else experiential. Enrich my life, don’t clutter my house. My sister-in-law, bless her heart, got me some random stuff for my birthday that sad to say is going to end up in the Good Will box. I just have no use for it whatsoever, but I don’t want to insult her by saying so. If I must have stuff, the annual trading-of-the-Amazon-gift-cards is A-Okay with me. I will purchase eBooks.
This may suck some of the fun out of Christmas. The Sculptor and I always play Santa for each other and fill each others’ stockings. How many of her stocking stuffers ended up in the GW box after last Christimas and/or on the kitchen counter at work for other people to eat so I could maintain my girlish figure? Yeah, I’m kind of Scroogey that way now.
Not sure I will play 365 things next year. I was actually stunned I could always find stuff if I looked hard enough this year. I probably could find 365 more things if I put my mind to it, but it can be exhausting at times. What it did do was change the way I look at the importance of “gotta keep this in case I need it” and “gotta buy this!” And it makes me value the stuff I hung on to all that much more. So I’ll carry one thing into 2014: a new attitude.
Author Nancy E. Shaffer 