Aftermath

So the Christmas season is officially over. Stores are turning back to what they once were before all the tinsel and glitter decorated all the shelves, street decorations and lights have been taken down, the mind numbing Christmas carols have stopped bombarding our streets, and our replaced gadgets are being thrown into some landfill.

Although the outside has stopped reminding us of the Christmas season, there are still a couple of things that never let us forget. For some it's the few extra kilos they put on during the holidays, and for others it's the wonderful gifts they received.

Not everyone experiences this time of year in a good way. While people might feel better that all the hassle is over, others might feel like the best part of the year is over and it's back to work. But whatever one might feel, there are things well all go through. Here's where I come in :P

I'm posting this to make you all aware of what you might need to do at this point in time.

Evaluate
Some like to send thank you cards to the people who sent them a Christmas gift. If you're one of these people, have you compiled a list of the gifts you've received? It's not nice the get a "Thanks for the Christmas gift" card in summer. Don't let it linger too long. Find the time, write the cards and send them out. If that's too much of a hassle, text, email or send an instant message to those who have access to these things and send card only to those who don't know how to communicate otherwise.




Restore
If you were one of the many people that decorated for the holidays but needed to go back to work immediately after, you might still have everything set up at home. Plan a day when you can pack everything up again. Don't procrastinate and reassure yourself that it's ok to leave everything up for now, because before you know it, you'll find yourself still staring at the decorations come February.




Remove
If you still have all the gift wrapping, extra packaging, manuals, boxes and cards and they're cluttering your room, well... I don't think I have to tell you what you need to do here. If it's made from plastic or paper, don't forget you can recycle it! You can also make some cool up-cycled stuff, specially using Christmas cards. I usually cut out the front of used cards and make them little tags to use with next year's gifts :)

Think
One last thing. This is the hard part. You need to think about all the presents you received. Did you love them so much that you use them all the time? Were they gifts you can't use and you had to leave them lying somewhere in the house? Did you hate them and didn't even bother to find them a place to lie? These things need to be taken into consideration.

If you kept the gifts, and it's important for the people around you to see you use them, then don't leave them somewhere and forget all about them.

If received a courtesy gift that you don't need or won't ever use, stick a post-it note with the name of whoever gave it to you on it and store it somewhere so that you can re-gift it. That note might save you from giving it to the same person you got it from should you decide to give it away in the future.

If you got a gift that replaced an old, broken or overused and useless item, there's no need to hang on to the replaced item. You don't need something that doesn't work. I have made this mistake many times. Camera broke? Well take all the parts that might actually come in handy (like the screws and maybe the LCD display or lens) and discard the rest. Mobile phone was replaced by something better? Sell your old one to someone who might need it. Don't be a pack-rat for the sake of needing something "just in case".