Tag Archives: Year of No Clutter

Stockings from the Scrinch

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If you’re a sugar-avoider at this time of year, it’s hard not to feel like the Grinch. If you’re a clutter-avoider, you may well feel like you’re channeling Scrooge. So if you’re like me you’re a… a Scrinch. Basically, this time of year represents a nexus of everything I’ve ever written about. Too much sugar? Too much clutter? It’s all here. No wonder celebrants suffer from “holiday hangovers” and vow a slew of New Year’s resolutions. The problem with too much is that it never feels like enough until… it feels bad.

My goal at Christmastime is to have fun without ever arriving at the hangover part. An important part of this is practicing what I preach and avoiding excess sugar AND excess stuff in my gift-giving.

Fuzzy Slipper Socks- like Halloween costumes for your toes

The holidays are tricky in this regard and Christmas is super tricky. This year I got a request to write about Christmas stockings in particular, which might be the trickiest of all. In a holiday that is chock-full of deeply weird traditions- trees in the house, shrubbery on the ceiling- the tradition of hanging our socks up for Santa to fill with treats is so especially strange that I am particularly fond of it.

But there are several key considerations with stocking stuffers. Firstly, no matter how big your stocking may be, there’s always a clear size limit. (I’m a stickler on this: in order to be a “stocking stuffer,” it must actually be physically stuffable in the stocking. Sorry, wall calendars.) Also, stocking contents are usually in addition to whatever “real” gifts are waiting under the tree, so probably there is a real budgetary limit as well. Santa has his work cut out for him, right? We need cheap, we need special and fun, we need small. And if you’re like me, and a Scrinch, then pile on top of those considerations the fact that you’re not wanting to overdose everyone on candy and chocolates either, OR wreck your home or the environment with crappo, plastic, break-in-five-minutes toys and hilarious, but-they-end-up-in-the-landfill joke gifts. (Seriously, no one really wants that taco-flavored coffee.)

If you know me, you probably have already guessed that I have given an inordinate amount of thought to The Stocking Problem. Before we go any further let me point out that yes, if you are avoiding sugar (which is cheap) and avoiding plastic crap (which is also cheap), it is going to be very, very easy to spend more money in the process of trying to avoid those things. So I recommend trying to work the problem backwards: decide how much money you want to spend on a person and then set aside some portion of that to spend on their stocking. No matter how much you set aside, of course, it won’t be enough, but that’s the nature of Christmas, so we’re used to it.

In the stocking stuffer category I’ve found most solutions to avoiding both sugar and clutter fall into two main groups. They are: No Sugar But Still Special Food, and Nice Versions of Small Things They Really Do Need/Will Use. Below are a few ideas I’ve used over the years… website links are beneath each idea. BTW no one is paying me to say any of this because I’m simply not that big a deal.

  1. No Sugar But Still Special Food:

Dried Cherries: Shhhhh! Don’t tell but I am totally doing this this year. I mean, Santa is. I hear. Chukar Cherries offers dried Rainer, Tart and Bing Cherries without added sugar in 6 oz bags for

Dried Cherries with No Added Sugar are a Special Treat

about $10 each, or in tiny 1.85 oz. snack bags coupled with pistachios, cashews and almonds, 12 pack for $39, so $3 each. Other dried fruits or freeze dried fruits can be great too, just be sure to check that they don’t contain added sugar, artificial sugar or sugar alcohols (if advertised “sugar free” be on the look-out for sucralose, erythritol, mannitol, isomalt. I’d avoid these things as well.)

https://www.chukar.com/fruits-and-nuts/fruits-and-nuts-no-sugar-added.html

The first time I tried this tea the guy said, “You’re going to think there’s sugar in it. There isn’t.”

Tea in a Tin: Not so much a kid gift, but adults hang stockings in our house too. Try: Harney and Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice Tea, which, due to its combination of spices, tastes as if it is sweetened… but it isn’t. Seriously, I wouldn’t kid you about this. $8. Also consider hot sauces, little jars of special olives stuffed with garlic, fancy French mustards, olive oil so prized it comes with an eyedropper… anything you can’t buy at the supermarket automatically counts as “special.”

Hot Cinnamon Spice

It explodes AND is edible. What more could a kid want?

Popcorn: There’s just something fun about the idea of food that explodes. Unflavored, unpopped popcorn is your best bet in the no added sugar department, so ignore the millions of “gourmet” flavored varieties that include everything from maple bacon to booze… instead how about corn still-on-the-cob? All you need is a brown paper bag and you can pop it right off the cob in your microwave. It really is kind of fun and you’re avoiding PFOAs! (The very nasty chemicals coating microwave popcorn bags.) At $5 for a two-cob bag you are paying a premium per cob for the novelty of it of course, but then again it’s the cheapest thing on this list so chalk it up to the Elves’ Union or something. Or, if you have more stockings to fill, they also have a package of ten cobs for $17, giving you a much better deal per cob.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/290327177/popcorn-on-the-cob-pops-off-the-cob-twin?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=popcorn&ref=sr_gallery-1-28&organic_search_click=1

https://www.etsy.com/listing/242419899/popcorn-on-the-cob-pops-off-the-cob?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=popcorn&ref=sr_gallery-1-15&organic_search_click=1

  1. Nice Versions of Small Things They Really Do Need/Will Use
Tie these up in a bunch with a big fat ribbon

Personalized Pencils: School supplies that are fun but usable can be great. Scented or shaped erasers, a stapler that looks like a man-eating shark- you get the idea. I love personalization as a way to make something mundane into something special- and kids LOVE having their name printed on things. You can get 24 in a variety of colors or designs for around $10.

https://www.orientaltrading.com/teaching-supplies-and-stationery/stationery/pencils/personalizable-a1-551467+18-1.fltr

Sloth Slippers is a good tongue twister

Big Fluffy Slipper Socks: Last year I found some super-fluffy, plush slipper socks for my two daughter’s stockings. At $20 a pair, they were on the expensive side, however the upside was that they took up a lot of room in the stocking. YES! This year I found this site (below) and I love both the slippers and the socks which are priced between $7 and $12. However- be careful of buying Santa-themed items- how much use will these really get after X-mas day? Instead I’d go with cuddly polar bears and penguins which are good all winter long.

Slipper Socks for Women

Because soap on a rope is fun to say. Plus: Snoopy

Fun Soaps: Soap is so great. It can be made in so many shapes and scents, and everyone needs it (unlike, say, scented candles or potpourri, which really aren’t for everyone.) Best of all, it’ll eventually get enjoyed and used up all at the same time. The Vermont Country Store has wonderfully cute animal-shaped soaps on a rope, for about $15, as well as soaps shaped like the gang from Peanuts. Please tell Santa I want the Snoopy.

https://www.vermontcountrystore.com/animal-pals-soap-on-a-rope/product/68775

So let me know: what do you think?

What other No Sugar/ No Clutter stocking stuffers have you found?

Happy Scrinching.

Once Upon a Coffee Table

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A silent epidemic

Do you or a loved one suffer from OCS? (Overstuffed Coffee-table Syndrome)? I know I do. Research suggests that 107% of depression is directly attributable to overstuffed coffee-tables. Clearly, it’s a silent epidemic.

But there are cures in development. To that end, I wanted to share my adventure of the other day, when I didn’t just clean off the coffee table, I freaking deconstructed it. I was like a woman possessed. I’m actually kind of lucky to even have a coffee table left at this point, given the fervor with which I went after this thing.

It all began in the morning when I realized that the table had disappeared under a pile of random stuff several weeks ago, and somehow hadn’t managed to get any better despite the fact that I’d been persistently ignoring it.  We had just returned from vacation, which made the noticing all the more acute: what I had managed to not-see in busy pre-vacation weeks now seemed to be glaring like a neon sign flashing helpful questions at me:

Eve? Really?

This is okay with you?

I mean, I was just wondering if you like living like this, I mean is it a conscious style choice on your part?

Is it like shabby chic, but you know, without the chic?

So I made the decision that I was going to clean it up. And not just the old musical-chairs-trick where you put the difficult things in another room and shut the door so you’re just not looking at it anymore, but really, actually clean it up. It might take all morning— in fact, knowing me it might even take all month— but I was determined: I would do nothing else until it was a completely clean surface, damn it.

Of course, projects like this are always easy… at first. I start by picking off the low hanging fruit. Anything that belonged to an actual person in possession of a bed in our home got their belongings transferred to that location. Greta’s craft project, Greta’s knitting, Ilsa’s school supplies, all quickly departed the scene. The table went from looking like this (left), to like this (right):

Next, I rolled up and put away all the cloth napkins and dishtowels that had been sitting half done for never mind how long.

Everything was going great! In no time at all I had gone from Ugh. to Much Better, but my momentum was about to hit a wall. The reason why had to do with a realization I had come to during my Year of No Clutter which was this: there is a big difference between clutter and a mess. A mess is composed of things we know what to do with, but we just haven’t gotten around to doing yet. Clutter is composed of things we don’t quite know what to do with, or for some reason can’t quite get to happen yet. Comparatively speaking, cleaning up mess is easy (if annoying). Clearing clutter, on the other hand is damn near impossible hard.

Keeping this distinction in mind, its easy to see why I got half the table clear so quickly, and why on any given day I might get this far and then go no further (only for the table to fill right back up over the rest of the afternoon and evening, am I right, people?)

So I took an inventory of the objects that remained, and the unanswered questions that made them clutter:

  1. Box and info booklet from new camera Steve bought… are we keeping these? Where will they live?
  2. Stack of CD-less jewel cases (some broken) and case-less CDs… what does one do with stuff like this? Is it just landfill material?
  3. Two non-functioning meat thermometers… one broken and one needs a new battery. No one knows which is which.
  4. Ilsa’s broken earring (in the tiny glass bowl)…  Fixable, or garbage? No one knows.

So, like most clutter, what these items needed was a little extra time and persistence. I tackled them one at a time.

  1. When Steve came home for lunch I explained that I was writing a “blog about the coffee table” and reminded him that the new camera box had been sitting there for never mind how long. A few minutes later the information booklet was on the bookshelf and the box was in the recycling. I’m not above using internet blackmail to get things done here, people.

2. I was reminded that empty jewel cases are, in fact, reusable, so I recycled the liner notes and posted the cases as “free” on a local online marketplace. Within a few minutes I had a taker! Someone wanted my 12 empty, scratched CD cases! Hooray, no landfill! But what about the broken ones? It turns out that broken cases are recyclable, but not in curbside recycling. Instead I’d have to take them to a Best Buy, which for us is about a 45 minute drive away. All the broken plastic went into a paper bag marked “next time anyone is in Saratoga drop these at Best Buy” and put it by the door. The CDs themselves? Sadly they were garbage and garbage only- so in the bin they went.

3. After figuring out how to open the meat thermometer battery thingies (that’s a technical term) I ran out and purchased new batteries. Within minutes I had fixed one thermometer and placed the broken one in our pile of electronics recycling in the basement.

4. At last it all came down to this: one tiny little broken faux-pearl earring. Literally, this earring had been migrating around our house for at least the last year in its little glass bowl, in search of someone to make a decision about it. Every single time I looked at it I had the exact same series of thoughts:

  • I should throw that thing out. It’s not like it’s worth anything.
  • But Ilsa loves those earrings.
  • I should try to fix it.
  • I don’t think I can fix it, though.
  • Oh look! It’s time to… pick the girls up/make dinner/teach myself harmonica
Eliminating clutter: not for the faint of heart

This time, however, I did not head out in search of a harmonica. This time I got out the super glue and right there and then glued that little earring sucker right back together. But not before I managed to spear myself with the sharp little Krazy Glue pin head.

No one said clearing clutter was without peril.

Ta Da!

Now. Can I just TELL you how proud I am of that beautiful, clean coffee table surface? Not to mention how delighted Ilsa was to at last have her beloved earring back, and the fact that I no longer have to worry about giving my family horrible, multisyllabic diseases via undercooked meat. It’s really quite unreasonable, how happy that beautiful, open surface in the middle of my house makes me.

Now that I have explained how hard-won such small victories can be, perhaps those who do not suffer from OCS can glimpse an empty coffee-table from a brand-new vantage point: that of a time-honored battlefield in the war on mess and clutter.

The struggle is real.

Okay, Phew

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True confessions time: I’ve actually been kind of afraid to check the results of the What To Do With Garfield?? poll. I mean, what if the winning answer was “Chuck It!”? Was I really gonna be able to put him in the trash? After all, this is me we’re talking about, who is utterly horrified by the concept of landfills. Who tries in vain to figure out how to repurpose hole-y sweat socks and who devotes actual brain space to whether or not toothpaste tube caps are recyclable. Besides, no matter how lame the project, I’m pretty sure I have never, ever thrown out something I’ve made… and I’ve certainly never thrown out anything I made that had a face.

Fortunately, weighing in at 27% of the vote, “Chuck It!” was juuuuust edged out by “donate to a school or library or….?” which garnered a very respectable 30%. So here’s what I am going to do: I will finish the pillow and donate it to our local library, where I might go and pay Garfield a visit whenever the mood strikes which will be, of course, exactly never. But it’s the knowing that I could that definitely- if inexplicably- helps.

The key element here is that I really do have to actually finish the pillow in order to make this into an object our library, or anyone for that matter, might actually want, and- surprise!- I don’t know how to do that. Which come to think of it is pretty much how Garfield and I got into this mess to begin with. Back to square one?

No! Or not without a fight anyway. I’m determined to break the cluttering cycle, and if I learned anything from my experience in the Hell Room, it is that indecision and inaction are the loving parents of each newborn piece of clutter. So if you’ll pardon me, I have a date with my sewing machine… in the Hell Room in the Art Room. Wish me luck!

Or Garfield, wish him luck. He might really need it.