Avalanche of ‘stuff’ has me anxious to purge

Ah, it’s the winter holiday season again, you know what that means.

It’s time to clean my house from top to bottom, prepare to host the family for the annual holiday gathering, face the most stressful weeks of the year at work and prepare for my son’s impending birthday party (because I had the awesome foresight and planning skills to have a baby 10 days after Christmas).

Be that as it may, this year was not nearly as daunting as Christmases past. I was kinder to myself and didn’t hold myself to impossible standards. Quick, simple recipes allowed me to socialize more with my guests and shoving piles of unsightly junk from my house in an unused room was a major win.

Of course, after the big get together, the junk around my house was still staring me in the face, taunting me with its giant piles of miscellaneous objects. Seriously, my living room looks like a tsunami of packaging, toys and clothes struck unannounced over the weekend.

I keep trying to find places for the things, only for more to appear (where do I put 10 pounds of chocolate and candy we received from well-meaning loved ones?)

This is the time of year where I start getting squirrely about how disorganized my house is and every New Year’s Eve I make the resolution to clean up the crap. And, sadly, each year I fail.

I suppose I can call myself somewhat successful in that I seem to be managing the chaos. No one in my friends or family group has called “Hoarding: Buried Alive” yet, so I have that going for me.

But when you have a toddler who is constantly growing and has a voracious appetite for books and other toys, you constantly have an influx of “stuff” into your home.

Despite the urge to want to break out in hives each time I survey the crap strewn across my house, it softens the blow somewhat to see my nearly 3-year-old delighted with life. His favorite toy he got this year? … A simple flashlight from his aunt and uncle.

As I watch him tread slowly down the darkened hallway with his newfound treasure in search of slaying monsters, I let myself relax a bit … at least for a week or so.

— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com or on Twitter @SentinelLeach.