Living Clutter Free Forever - decluttering tips, professional organizing, minimalist living

Managing expectations: 5 steps to declutter the holiday chaos #130

• Caroline Thor - Professional Organizer - KonMari® Consultant

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Does the holiday season feel more chaotic than cheerful?
Are you drowning in clutter, overwhelm, and endless gift lists?

The holidays should bring peace and joy, but for so many of us, they come wrapped in stress. Between tidying the house, managing family expectations, and juggling countless commitments, it’s easy to feel like the season owns you.

But here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be that way.

In this week’s podcast episode, Managing Expectations: 5 Steps to Declutter the Holiday Chaos, I’m breaking down exactly how to take control. Using the KonMari approach and other organization strategies, I’ll help you rethink how you approach the holiday season.

We’ll talk about:
✅ Setting boundaries with family without guilt.
✅ Simplifying gift-giving (without losing the magic).
✅ Prioritizing what sparks joy—so your holiday reflects your values.

When you’re clear on your vision for the season, organizing everything—from your schedule to your gifts—becomes a breeze. Imagine a holiday where connection, calm, and clarity replace stress and overwhelm.

The holidays don’t have to run you ragged. Take a step back, declutter the chaos, and design a season that truly brings joy to your family.

Ready to reclaim your holiday spirit? Hit play and find out how! 

I would LOVE to hear from you. Text Message me here.

Get your home tidy in just 15 minutes a day! Grab my FREE 15 Minute Declutter Kickstart Guide HERE!

Thanks for listening! For more organizational motivation, support and free resources:
Join my online membership Clutter Free Collective
Join my podcast Facebook group Living Clutter Free Forever Podcast: KonMari® Inspired Organizing | Facebook
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Follow me on Facebook @carolineorganizer

Speaker 1:

Hi there, I'm Caroline Thor, professional organiser, konmari consultant, teacher and mum of three. I started off my life as a mum feeling overwhelmed, disorganised and desperately trying to carve out some time for me amongst the nappies, chaos and clutter. One day, one small book called the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying changed everything and I began to learn strategies for making everyday life easier. Today, I have the systems in place that means life can throw almost anything at me, and I want to share them with you. If you're an overwhelmed mum struggling to keep it together, then this is the podcast for you. Grab a coffee and settle in for a quick chat with someone who gets your reality. Hello and welcome to this latest episode of the Living Clutter-Free Forever podcast.

Speaker 1:

My name's Caroline and I'm a professional organiser and KonMari consultant and, quite frankly, it is a miracle that this episode is even happening. This is my fourth attempt at recording it, and every time my tech has just died on me, so let's keep our fingers crossed that this one works. I would like to start with celebrating something I found out last week that I have moved from being a gold level KonMari consultant to a platinum level KonMari consultant. I am so, so proud. It means I have over 900 hours of in-person client work and I now just need to do an awful lot more hours I can't remember how many hundreds to get to master level, so I will keep chipping away at it. But thank you, if you're listening and you're one of my clients, I really appreciate you and I was really proud and excited to hear that last week. And the other thing I was really proud and excited about is how many countries this podcast has charted at number one in the home and garden category. So podcasts are split into categories. This podcast, because it's to do with home mainly, is in the home and garden category, and I was having a look at the stats for the year. It blew my mind Listen to these countries. Where we have we I'm going to say we because you're included in this where we have been number one Belgium, chile, croatia, el Salvador sort of stuck at number one there, which is quite fun Finland, hong Kong, estonia, india, luxembourg, netherlands, poland, south Korea, spain, sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates, and in China, japan and South Africa. In China, japan and South Africa we've charted at number two.

Speaker 1:

I am just so so grateful to anyone who listens anywhere, but I thought it would be really fun. If you are in any of those countries I just mentioned, I would love to hear from you. I would love to thank you personally for putting us up there at number one. If you go to the show notes for this podcast, there is a link that says send me a message, and I would love for you to just send me a message and go I live in wherever and I listen and my name is and whatever, and I would love to give you a shout out. Or you could come to Instagram and send me a DM at Instagram. I'm at carothor on Instagram, yeah, wherever you're listening. Thank you, it is just amazing what this podcast is doing and I couldn't do it without you and I am so, so proud of everything that we're achieving together. So let's keep working at it. If you have a friend who you think would love this podcast, then please, please, share the link with them. The more people it goes out to, the more people the podcast platform send it out to as like a suggestion, and it helps it grow and spread, and I would be forever grateful.

Speaker 1:

So let's get on with today's topic, which is following on from last week's episode about the holiday season, and this week. I would like to talk about how to communicate with family, about simplifying holiday chaos, because, let's face it, the holidays should bring peace and joy, but all too often they come with this dose of chaos and stress a lot of it, which is self-inflicted, because we feel pressured to meet everyone else's expectations even if we really don't want to. And I shared in the previous episode that for me in the past, christmas because that's something we celebrate in my family used to stress me so badly. The food I spent hours and hours cooking and preparing and baking. The house had to be super clean if we were hosting. That really stresses me, because I don't like cleaning Before the KonMari method. The whole tidying thing used to stress me beyond belief. And then we haven't even started with the gifts gifts where I used to be a bit perfectionist about wanting to get the right gift for everybody. So this episode is going to cover how you can set boundaries and manage expectations with family so that you can simplify holiday plans and potentially introduce some more non-physical gifts in order to make the season a bit more intentional.

Speaker 1:

Now you may well be asking what does this have to do with organisation? I personally think it has everything to do with organisation. Organisation, for me, is not just about the physical stuff. It's about our calendar. It's about how we organise our expectations. It's about how we organise our life and how we have a vision for how we want to live and the tweaks we need to make in order for that to happen.

Speaker 1:

So, with that in mind, I think the first thing you really need to do is clarify your vision for what a joyful holiday is for you. Whichever holidays you personally celebrate, what would make it amazing for you? Now, why does this matter? Because if you're going to sit down and talk to family and say, look, I would like to change this or we won't be attending this party, you need to have the confidence to have those discussions about simplifying, based on being really clear about what your vision is for your holiday. So you could sit down with your immediate family members if you have a partner, if you have kids and perhaps together as a family, you could work out what your perfect holiday season would look like. And or you rather, are joyful because perfect isn't a thing, and then you're. You have a clear grounding to go forward and talk to people. Now you could do a bit of self-reflection in order to come to these conclusions about what would be a joyful holiday for you, you could take a few minutes to journal or think through what matters most. So there are three top priorities, I think.

Speaker 1:

So what would make the holiday season for you feel fulfilling? Is it quality time, fewer events, less focus on gifts, maybe more relaxation or just time spent in front of the TV watching films? Are there traditions that you are only maintaining out of obligation, because that's what your parents did and that's the expectation? And as you visualize your ideal holiday, I'd like you to think about what it would be like in terms of a feeling. Is it quiet, with very few gatherings, or maybe some cozy nights with loved ones? Or maybe for you, the perfect holiday season would be hosting the most enormous party, because that's what sparks joy for you?

Speaker 1:

It is different for absolutely everybody, and then I would like you to really think about how. Think about how simplifying with this clear vision is going to help you shift the holiday focus to connection and calm. Now, even if you are someone that is a massive party person and you want to have a really big party and host hundreds of people, we can still do that with connection and feeling calm about it and not stressed about the big party. Do you see the difference? So I think these things are really, really important, and I think it's also important to be really clear about what the sources of holiday stress and chaos are. The most common ones that I've managed to think about are shopping, meal preparation, scheduling, events, hosting and gift giving. These are the things that I think for most people become overwhelming. You may have other triggers and that's fine, but I would invite you to identify the top one or two sources of your holiday stress. Maybe it's being with family. Maybe, for your family, all being together is not the perfect scenario. There are some families where that is the case.

Speaker 1:

Are there holiday traditions that are expected that drain you and do not align with your values? Or maybe they used to align with your values 10 years ago, but now they don't because things have shifted. I used to, in days gone by, cook a full turkey dinner for everyone on Christmas, which is very traditional in the UK. I was vegetarian at the time, but I still did that because I had this expectation that people would want to have a traditional Christmas lunch. Do you know how stressful it is, as a vegetarian, to cook a whole turkey. I mean it's just, oh, massaging the butter in and stuff. No, no, no, no, no. Anyway, I've now the last couple of years gone predominantly plant-based, so I'm not even vegetarian anymore. I'm more plant-based than vegetarian, and I have realised that for me, cooking meat over Christmas is just not something I want to do. It just doesn't align with my values anymore and I'm not going to do it just so that other people can have their perfect Christmas if it makes me feel really uncomfortable.

Speaker 1:

So it's looking at what. Can we release? What is essential? What isn't essential? Do you feel pressured to attend every family gathering, even if it stresses you out, and let go of some of those things so that you can embrace a holiday that resonates with you and that sparks joy for you? Now, I know what you're thinking. This is all very well, caroline, but my mum is not going to be very happy if I were to tell her I'm not cooking any meat or if I were to say I'm not going to come to yours for Christmas this year. It is hard.

Speaker 1:

So how do you communicate these boundaries and changes with friends and family? Start with empathy. Approach these conversations with an understanding that your family's expectations may come from a place of love and tradition, even if for you they feel overwhelming, and in order to have these conversations we perhaps need to frame them in a certain way. So let's think about if we want to invite some open discussion about the holiday season. You could maybe say we want this season to be really meaningful for everyone. Can we maybe have a chat about how we can all make it a bit more relaxed? Okay, that's very non-confrontational. It's opening up a discussion. You could phrase boundaries really positively, like we're hoping to have a slower paced holiday this year, so we may not make it to every gathering, but we can't wait to catch up with you at the main event. So by saying it in that way, you're still saying you want to see everybody, but you're explaining why you may not make it to everything.

Speaker 1:

How do you set limits on gift giving? This one, I think, is really hard. You could say something along the lines of we're focusing more on experiences over things. This year. Let's find a fun way to do gifts that's lighter but still thoughtful. So it's not like you're trying to avoid having to do any gift giving. You still want it to. Not like you're trying to avoid having to do any gift giving. You still want it to be thoughtful, you still want to give gifts, but you're setting limits on how it's going to be.

Speaker 1:

Now you are very, very likely to have some pushback from people. There may be family concerns. You may need to validate their feelings, but at the same time you need to gently reinforce your own boundaries so you could say something like I hear you and I know it's different from how we've done things before, but we really want to keep the season manageable. We have had to do this ourselves as a family. We have one child with autism and they have a type of autism that's called pathological demand avoidance and it makes it very, very difficult for them to be in any situation where there is an expectation that they're going to behave or do things in a certain way. So going to any sort of social event is like a living nightmare for them and we have basically had to say okay, we're really sorry, we're not going to be able to visit you, but we would love to host, because then this child can go up to their bedroom and be out of the way and join in when they feel they can, but there's no expectation that they have to. Now, if you have family concerns and pushback, then it's really important to acknowledge that they may have some sentimental attachments to certain traditions. You could offer small reassurances to keep them in the loop, like a special call. Or you're going to do a smaller, one-on-one holiday visit so that you actually will still see them and you want to make it more special. It is with older family members or those who are very resistant to change. It is difficult, but if you have clearly visualized what your ideal holiday scenario would look like and you've thought about what the arguments are going to be from people, then you can prepare yourself for those conversations.

Speaker 1:

Okay, clutter-free, non-physical gifts I am so into these. Why go clutter-free? There is a huge benefit to non-physical gifts. They're low stress for you to get, they don't add to clutter for other people and they can create meaningful memories with people we care about without taking up space. So here are some examples of non-physical gifts. I hope you find these really helpful Experiences.

Speaker 1:

You could set up a family game night where you give a voucher and say we're inviting all of you over for a family game night and you provide food and snacks on that and you turn it into a big event you could do a day pass to a local attraction, a spa day gift certificate or shared cooking classes. There are so many things that come under experiences. Be a little bit careful about gift certificates. I have to say, having worked with so many people now decluttering their homes, we often find in drawers expired gift certificates because people just haven't found the time to go and do the thing. So I find, when I gift somebody time, so I will cook a meal for you, I would love for you to come over for a weekend. Or, for example, we had some friends some years ago. They had their 40th birthday and so their gift was we invited them and their whole family for a weekend to stay with us and we cooked and we played games together and we just hung out. So we had time together. Those sorts of experiences are more likely to happen because you're going to put it in the calendar, you're going to book it and do it, or take someone out for a meal rather than a gift certificate that, yes, everyone will be super happy and love it, but they may actually never get around to using it, which is a waste of money and it's bad, for they'll feel guilty too.

Speaker 1:

Okay, another thing subscriptions. You could do magazine subscriptions. I love a magazine subscription if you know the person really loves that magazine. My sister last year gave me a magazine subscription to British Good Housekeeping magazine for a year and I have loved it. Every month the new magazine drops through the door and it's the one thing that I actually find time to sit down and read, so that's great. You could do subscriptions to book clubs or streaming services or subscription boxes that are tailored to whoever it is you're gifting it to, interest. Just be careful that you're not, for example, subscribing to a subscription box where they get loads of stuff arriving every month, because all we're doing then is adding to clutter in their homes.

Speaker 1:

You could do donations, so you could make a donation to a favourite charity in a family member's name or supporting a cause that's meaningful to them. My mum did this quite some time ago. She asked for us all. I think it was for her 60th birthday. She asked us. It was a long time ago. She asked us all to make a donation to a charity rather than giving her a gift, and I thought that was a really lovely thing to do. You can create homemade gift vouchers, so personal gift certificates for activities like babysitting or a home-cooked meal or a night of board games or movies. When we gift these things, I always get my kids to make the vouchers because it's even more special for the person that we're gifting it to, that the kids have invested time in creating them and it's it's always. They always turn out much better than if I did them.

Speaker 1:

Now, how do you communicate clutter-free gift ideas to family so you could present it almost like a family challenge or experiment. So you say I've really been thinking this year about decluttering. So how about we try to focus on gifts that don't take up space but bring us together? Or you could offer to coordinate a secret Santa with non-physical gifts only. So this will be fun, but it reduces the number of gifts that are exchanged. But it reduces the number of gifts that are exchanged. And then you've also got the people that are traditional givers. Some family members may feel that non-physical gifts aren't as real because they want to sit there with a parcel, a gift to unwrap. But if you explain to them that focusing on these gifts allows for more thoughtfulness and personalization and shared experiences, then they hopefully will come around to your way of thinking. So, finally, gaining family buy-in with small adjustments.

Speaker 1:

Start with small changes. If you think your family are going to be really adverse to you changing all of these things in one year, then simplify it by trying smaller adjustments. So for, perhaps this year, secret Santa instead of full-scale gift exchange, so that everyone gets a physical gift but everyone's only buying for one person. Or reduce the number of events, so perhaps choose one big family event rather than attending every gathering. There are benefits in this for everyone. You are going to have more quality time together without the chaos of all these back-to-back obligations. There's going to be less stress and and this one, I know it shouldn't come as a priority, but in this day and age I think it's also something we really, really need to be aware of. It's going to mean less financial strain from reduced gift giving.

Speaker 1:

We are in an economic climate at the moment that is not easy, and it might be really helpful for you to have less gifts needing to be bought, and I really think you could frame the shift as an experiment for everyone, so you could say let's see if, if we do things this year in a simpler way, it makes the season feel more joyful, and give it a go for this this holiday season, and if your family feel it doesn't work, then you could perhaps reintroduce some things in the future. So I would love for you to try something new this holiday season. I would love to hear that it's perhaps felt calmer and less pressured for you, and that you have been able to create new traditions that suit your current values and family needs. So I would like to encourage you to take one step this week, having listened to this episode, towards simplifying your holiday season, whether it's starting a conversation with family or having a look online and exploring non-physical gift ideas. It's the small steps that you take that lead to big changes, and that is something that I wish for all of you.

Speaker 1:

Until next time that I wish for all of you. Until next time. If you've enjoyed this episode, please send the link to a friend you know would appreciate it, subscribe and leave a review. I look forward to bringing you more organising tips next time, but if you can't wait until then, you can go to my website or find me on Instagram, at carothor, or on Facebook at Caroline Organiser. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to guiding you on your journey to find your clutter-free ever after.