Hi, I'm Paige Killian and I'm passionate about helping busy moms of littles organize and style their life in three simple steps. Living this mom life is incredible and sometimes completely overwhelming. Is stressing about over stuffed drawers. Never ending mail piles a mountain of Legos and our kids' artwork.
Really what God intended. No way. Getting organized has been a game changer for me and also my clients, but it has to be simple or it just won't get done. So let's simplify the process and clear the clutter to see the blessings God has for us. I know your time is. So thanks for joining me each week for a healthy dose of organization and a whole lot of motivation.
Well, holy pumpkin spice latte. It's fall, y'all. And that means weather. Weather and holidays are coming around. The second the kids get into school, it suddenly becomes holiday season. Have you noticed that whenever you are doing back to school shopping, there are already a couple of stores that have got some Halloween decor over on the side just waiting in the wings, very close to their seasonal summer items that are all on clearance.
And then what happens when mid-September. It's like everything is covered in Halloween decor or orange pumpkin, everything, and then suddenly it is the mega holiday season and it just feels like it rolls out faster and faster. Every year. What is that all about? I feel like when you add more kids to your family too, somehow e everything just exponentially moves faster.
So I was thinking about that today as, uh, yesterday my daughter has started volleyball and we needed to quickly pick her up, run home, change clothes, do homework, lightning fast to get her over to a volleyball clinic, and she said, Mom, I have never had a pumpkin spice latte, and I was like, Well, you're young and there's no reason to introduce coffee to you right now.
So I said, All right, let's head over to Starbucks and we will grab you a pumpkin spice. Do you say cream or crima? I think it's crima, but I always question . What is. Gonna sound like with my accent if I start saying things that sound fancy. So, uh, either way what it is, is no coffee. That's what it is. So I caved and I said, Okay, we could try that.
She, you know, was kind of on the fence about it. She's like, Okay, yeah, it's, it's fine. But she's like, What's all the fuss? You know, everybody. Is all about the pumpkin spice lattes or the pumpkin, everything this time of year. So she had to try it, check that off the list. I think she might be going back to like a caramel version of the Frappuccino now.
But the case is we are immediately thrust into what feels like holiday season once our kids sort of start hitting their stride in school. So if you are in Southern California, You've now been in school for a couple of months, If you're like, some of my good old friends in Tennessee, they've been at this for a while.
I think that they start beginning of August, and so you guys are really, really deep into the school year at this point. Hope it's going well. We're having a good year so far. You know, , there's, there's still time for things to go awry, but for the most part we're good. So with all of these holiday things that are already making their way, Into the stores, into my inbox, into my social feeds.
I am definitely seeing lots of things that are referencing the holidays and you know, the second you pick out the Halloween costumes, you suddenly are seeing what is your place setting needs to look like for Thanksgiving? Who's hosting this year? And then, Really before Thanksgiving's over, you're already seeing all the Christmas decor and the new Year decor and it's just like, wait, hold on.
Pump the breaks. So I thought I'd do an episode today where we just talk about really getting prepared for what organizing for the holidays is gonna look like. So, so kind of prepping ahead and I really do believe that. Starts right when your kids get into school and they kind of hit their stride. If you can start thinking about holidays earlier in the year, you will be more prepared and more organized when they come.
So I just wanted to suggest a few things today. A lot of that is looking at and being just very aware of what things you are grabbing this year. So last week I did a garage organiz. Episode, and one of the things kind of at the tail end of that, that I mentioned is organizing holiday decor in the garage and a lot of stuff that we have put into the garage or the attic or wherever you have your decor.
A lot of that stuff doesn't get brought out year after year. Some of it does, and perhaps the majority for you does, but a lot of times over time, we've accumulated a lot of things that we're just not using anymore. So first I wanted to bring up the topic of. Decor. That is something that you can get a little something here or there each year and then suddenly five years later, you have a massive amount of decor for every holiday that you now have to store year round.
So do consider what is it you're actually reaching for this year? And if you're finding that you're not pulling things out, or perhaps you were given something, like I really came to this realization. Last year that we were given some hammy downs from my husband's family that were things that like grandmothers knitted or great grandmothers cross stitch pit, whatever.
I, this, that's not my expertise. So I don't quite know what words I'm saying here, but I'm just saying, you know, needle to fabric. Created something lovely and beautiful at the time. Now it's super outdated, but there's that special memory attached to it. Well, listen, if you're not putting it up, if you're not hanging it up to display and it's just living in boxes year after year, ask yourself, Do I want to hold onto this holiday decor that is just not seeing the light of day?
I actually did a good purge on a lot of stockings that we have. Outgrown stockings that we had many years ago when we lived in New York and we didn't have kids, we just had Delilah, the French Bulldog, and I just thought, you know, we don't have to hold onto Delilah's stocking anymore because she is up living her best life in puppy heaven right now.
I don't have to hang onto that anymore. And just because you're letting go of things of your loved ones or loved. Pets. Just know that if you need permission today to donate that or get rid of that, or even tos it in the trash or recycle it, I'm giving you that permission because like I said, they're not up in heaven thinking like, Gosh, Paige didn't put out my stalking this year.
I don't like her anymore. No. They are living their best life, praising Jesus. They do not need to worry about whether or not we are hanging onto every single thing they gave to us. That is taking on the title of clutter in our home and in our holiday decor section. So I will say though, that we've lost a couple of amazing grandmothers in our family in recent years, and a couple of those items we're wanting to hang onto for holiday decor because those will 100% come out year after year.
Those will be a special little moment, but guess what? They're few and far. Because then those items really stay special. So the little carousel that my husband's grandmother, we call her Yaya, uh, she gave that to us many years ago. My kids still love this little holiday carousel that goes around, spins around.
We have one little piece on it that was a broken light that I had to glue back together years ago because tiny little Duke hands got a hold of it because it was so sparkly and beautiful. He wanted to touch it and. Look at that. It's snapped and broke. We have those items. You have those items. I know you do.
Just do an inventory this year and say, If this is something that is meaningful to me, I'm gonna make sure it is not broken. So you might need to fix it. You might need to send it out now to get it fixed so it's ready for Christmas or when, whatever holidays you're gonna be celebrating. Maybe you need to be thinking about that stuff now.
Maybe now, if you are working on that garage organization, like I talked about, Week. This is the time that you go ahead and pull out all your holiday dec court and do a really good, decisive, fearless purge. Be ruthless, get rid of stuff because you're going to definitely be bringing stuff in. Through the new Years that are coming, making sure that you are always doing that good purge so that you have enough space to still accommodate anything new is really, really important.
So definitely do a good purge of this stuff. And like I said, really make note. If you've already done the organization of your holiday decor and you're like, Okay, Paige, but I just wanna wait until it's actually the holiday. When you pull stuff out, go ahead and drag out the stuff that's hidden behind it that.
Planning on using this year and just be fearless and decisive and say, I'm getting rid of this stuff and now by the way, is a great time to do that before the holiday is upon you, because then you have time to donate it or to sell it so that people can actually use it this particular holiday season.
Okay. A lot of people do that. After when you get ready to, uh, put the stuff back, wherever it goes, but making sure that you are looking at it before it's time gives you the opportunity to get it in the hands of people that will be able to use it this year. So that's something else to consider now beyond holiday decor.
Maybe I've like really beaten a dead horse on that one. But like beyond, Beyond, beyond holiday decor. When you're talking about holidays, then you might be thinking, who's hosting this year? And now that we are finding ways to get back together, when we had a couple years there where it was really a question of is it safe?
What's the best thing to do? Are we wearing masks? Are we not wearing masks? Are we all taking covid tests? You know, all that kind of stuff. Right? Start thinking about that. Now and then have a backup plan. What if somebody gets hurt? Well, they're still, the Zoom calls, they're still FaceTime. If we need to get together with people, there's still Google Hangouts, you know, depending on, depending on what phone you have.
Do you know? I never realized that people who don't have Apple phones couldn't do. FaceTime. It just didn't occur to me until someone said that's when Google Hangouts came about because they couldn't do FaceTime. I think I'm getting that right. Maybe I'm not, but I didn't realize that. So there are different ways, obviously, depending on what technology you have at your fingertips, what you're using regularly.
There are ways to get together with family and friends. In a, uh, socially appropriate way if something were to come up. So, good heavens, I really hope that we are not still going to be year after year facing just new variants of things that would keep us away from our family. Uh, but I will say always have that backup plan just in case.
Okay. Just in case and really sort of. Set some boundaries and then some realistic expectations around that too. So if you do need to have the hard conversation now about perhaps something like that, if you are a family that really wants to be conservative and super safe, you know, have those conversations now so that people, if you.
Planning ahead for hosting, and then other people are planning ahead for, you know, flying or doing road trips or something like that to you. Uh, or vice versa. Maybe you are actually planning to go to them, making sure that you are having those, you know, maybe possibly tricky, hard conversations right now about what happens if something does happen.
What's the backup plan? And I wanna also say, , if this is the first year in a long time that you've hosted, don't feel like you have to have the entire family or friends, like if you're doing Friendsgiving or you know, something like that. Don't feel the pressure. Don't feel the pressure of anything ever.
Let me just say that. Let me just say, you know, for going forward in any conversation that we ever have, any subject we ever broach on this podcast, like just don't. Put massive pressure on yourself to do anything that looks like what anybody else is doing. You do it in your own style. Okay? The name of my business, everything with Style came from that.
You do it in your own style, what works best for you. So if you know aunt. Whoever Betty decides that all these years she's been hosting, and then this year Aunt Betty decides, I don't wanna host anymore. I'd like to have someone else do the work, and I'd like to go to their house. Well, guess what? You don't have to do everything like Aunt Betty did.
You can do it in your own style. Who's Aunt Betty? I don't know, but if you have one, Hey, so please make sure that you are taking the pressure off of yourself that you might be putting on if you've decided to. The hostess with the mostess this year, and I will tell you the way you are, the hostess with the mostess is that you definitely do not have stress surrounding whatever this fun event is that you're going to have.
Make sure you're asking for help. Say, Aunt Betty, you crushed at all these years. We absolutely love your. Whatever Jello mold. I don't know what is, What does Aunt Betty do really well? Can you bring your jello mold? ? Hopefully Aunt Betty has something better than that, but that's what just came to mind.
Grand mommy, when she was alive and was at all of our gatherings, she would be in charge of doing the grand mommy dressing. Okay. We didn't have stuffing, we had dressing, and we had her dressing, and it was amazing her dressing. Her gravy. Uh, maybe your thing is deviled X. Okay, now I'm just getting hungry cause I haven't eaten yet before this, this episode, by the way, side.
Food. Can I just tell you that I had a lovely experience? If you are local, and you could obviously find them online as well, but if you are local, go to Al Venice. If you go to al venice.com, Al as in Woohoo, O w L, Owl Venice, not in Italy, but in, uh, Southern California, Venice. So if you go there, they have all of these amazing.
It's really funny that I'm about to talk about this cleanse as I'm talking about holiday food, but here we are. So I went there the other day because I was feeling like I really need a reset. I really need to make sure like I've got some healthy stuff going on in my body. Wanted to have that like good gut health stuff going on.
And we love their bone broth. And so I went there with the kids after church the other day and it was so yummy and they had this whole reset. Cleanse that I think I'm gonna do. So stand by for that.
A friendly reminder that my book is now available on Kindle and paperback over on Amazon. So if you haven't gotten it yet or you have and you'd like to get more, head over to Amazon and search for, I've Got You Girlfriend. Why? Getting organized and living this mom life is not a solo. You can also find a direct link over on my [email protected].
Thanks so much for making it a best seller and back to the show.
So I bring that up because like I was saying, if you have Aunt Betty with a good jello mold, what you might decide to do differently this year. And feel no pressure. Maybe you want your good old face. Listen, I'm a southern girl. I'm all about some sweet potato casserole that came out of canned yam jars.
I'm all about adding extra marshmallows after the kids have scraped them off the top. I'm all about green bean casserole that has cream of mushroom soup in it. Okay, Campbell's faith. But listen, if you decide this year, That you would really like to take a healthier approach. Again, I'm just saying think about these things beforehand.
As you're organizing for the holidays, start thinking about them now in October, in these early fall months so that when you get to that place, you have not only decided this for yourself and what's important to you, but you've also communicated with your family and said, This year, guys, I'd really love if we can all come together and maybe find a healthier version of some of our old fas.
And maybe it would be fun for you to have the old faves and then decide you're gonna try a healthier spin on it. And everybody has like a blindfold taste test or something. You know, that's, that's fun. And that's a way to introduce new traditions. That's a way to perhaps introduce a healthier way of doing things And.
You know, really don't put that pressure on yourself to do everything the way you've done it before. This is exactly why I started this podcast because there were needs of ways that we had done things in the past, going toward new ways of trying them in the future, new ways of getting organized, new ways of styling, your home, your life, your wardrobe, your schedule.
So it's working best for you and your ever changing family. So I just wanna give you that permission if you needed it, to switch things up a little bit, communicate with your family. This is what I wanna see happen this year. We haven't done it like this for a while. I'd really love to try this. And if they're not on board, Don't worry you, do you?
Okay. Say some prayers, ask for backup from the big guy, and go ahead and try something new. And if you want to try something new, but still having some of those old traditions or some of that old memorabilia that you're bringing out for the holidays. Special, Absolutely do that. Have new conversations around the old stuff, but be preparing ahead now this soon so that you can really get to what your ultimate goals are or the outcomes you wanna see happen for your holidays.
Okay, so we've touched on decor, we've talked about purging. Anything you're not using anymore. We've talked about. Perhaps hosting or if you're going to someone else's home who is going to be hosting, making sure you're calling ahead and saying, How can I be most helpful for you? What could I bring? What could I do?
Let me know about it. How about this? How about holiday travel? Jump on that train. Well, that's funny. I was saying jump on that train metaphorically, but. Maybe you are taking a train, so whatever mode of transportation you are taking to get from one place to the other, go ahead and start that communication now.
And always making sure that you can set those dates ahead of time so that you can plan ahead and financially it's a little less stressful when oftentimes you plan ahead to get. You know, the car or the plane ticket or the perhaps hotel that you're gonna stay at, because maybe everybody who's coming in, you don't want them all at your house.
So you're gonna tell 'em some local places they can stay, or as they said, vice versa, you're going somewhere else. And maybe that's something that you wanna plan ahead for. So do consider that as well. So honestly, I'm gonna leave it super open ended about where you take this, because I want you to remember.
If you are starting to feel overwhelmed and you feel like those holidays are flying at you super fast, I will always recommend going back to my three E's to really simplify the process. So if you are thinking this is what I wanna do this year, I love going back to the tri entry three E philosophy that I created years ago when I was a kindergarten teacher, because I found that when I got overwhelmed or when my kindergarten students got overwhelmed, Or now my children, we will come up with three simple steps to move the ball forward without feeling the overwhelm.
So if the holidays are already freaking you out and you're thinking, How are we here? How do I prepare? It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Pick. Three simple steps. You start with those. Once you do those, then you can pick three more if you're not finished with the project yet. So if planning for the holidays, you decide this year might essential, that's your number one is going to be going through.
Truly going through the holiday decor and really pairing down and deciding I only have what I need and use and love. That can be your essential. Perhaps your enhancement is going to be, okay, we're hosting this year. Let's make sure that within this second, you know, E of the enhancement, let's make sure that we're being very clear in communicating our needs, how things are gonna be this year, and asking for help if we need to do that.
Finally, maybe your extra for the year is deciding that you are going to start new traditions. Now guys, I'm coming up with this on the fly as I'm saying it. So your three E's could look completely different than anybody else's. But within those three simple steps and focusing on that, then you could break it down to simpler things.
So let's say if you are talking about, you know, your extra is gonna be starting new traditions this year, okay? Once you've made that decision, Now let's talk about what that looks like. You might wanna have three e within that heading and say, Okay, I'm going to ask, well, let's just go back to Aunt Betty cuz that's great.
Uh, I'm going to ask Aunt Betty to bring the jello mold. I, I don't even know how we got on this topic out making these choices today. This is what happens when you have bullet points in your head, but you didn't write down the actual examples, and then you just wing it when you hit record. Here we are Aunt Betty and Jello molds.
Okay. So, but you reach out to her and you say, Hey, this year I've decided that really talking about traditions is going to be important to us, especially because maybe we haven't gotten together really the way that we used to in the last couple of years. Could you please bring this that we love? That's tried and true.
And guess what we're doing this year? We are going to do a fun new spin on the old fave and the way that we did it in the past. And so we would love to all get together that day and in the kitchen when everybody gets there before we sit down to have the Turkey or the ham or the, you know, vegan tofu option.
You do you remember? We are going to all try to get together and make that jello mold the way you always have. Or this year we are going to all try to do our spin on Aunt Betty's jello mold and everybody gets to bring their own and we're gonna do the taste test or do you see where I'm going with this?
Obviously we're just like giving this one solid example solid. Well, if we're talking about jello, it's not very solid. We're giving this one jiggly, wiggly example. Uh, but clearly this can apply to whatever makes sense in your life. But thinking about these things ahead, prepping ahead, having that communication, doing a good purge, if it's.
A holiday decor situation or whatever's going on. Maybe if you're hosting, you're thinking, Hey, just not the holiday decor, that's the issue. It's my home. I actually need to get in and do a good purge of my home. And remember, whatever it is that you are purging. Give those items to people who could use them and start early if they are holiday related, start early so that these people can be enjoying it.
I mean, one of the things that we've done in the past talking about traditions is we did Turkey on the table and that was a really. Sweet way for everybody to go around year after year, no matter who we spent the holidays with, whether it was just the four of us at home or we got together with the family, everybody would get a feather to add to this Turkey that literally sat in the middle of the table.
And over the years it's been so. So fun not only to see who has actually attended the holidays with us, but to see handwriting of the kids change over the years to also see the little date to see how long ago that was written. So that's super fun. So think about these things. If it's important to you, if one of your ease this year is going to be starting holiday tradit.
Or continuing holiday traditions. Make sure you're thinking about those things now so you're not scrambling at the end to figure it out. You will feel more organized, you will feel more prepared, which leads to a happier, calmer hostess and you will have the mostest. So I hope you guys are already thinking about these fun things and maybe these suggestions will get you thinking about some new fun things you could try or just getting back in.
Decor and doing a big good perch. So thank you so much for listening. As always, if there's anything in particular that I haven't talked about yet that you'd really like for me to please send me a message, you could always go to everything with style.com and find me on the contact page there. You can look back.
Old podcast episodes and decide what is it that I wanna hear about right now? Has Paige ever talked about this? You can actually go to not only the podcast [email protected], but you can go to the [email protected]. Scroll down to the bottom, there's a scrolling gallery that has photos and it has the title of each episode, and then you can just click on it and it'll take you to the podcast that talks about those things.
So I have done holiday, uh, podcast episodes in the. So you could just go back and check those out and I could pop a couple in show notes as well. So if you want to look back at show notes, just scroll down below on whatever platform you're listening to, and you'll see some links there so you can go directly to those if something more specific about the holidays is something you're wanting to listen to today.
So thank you again so much for listening, and I will talk to you next week for some more. Organization Motivation, buy for now. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Mom's Organization Motivation Podcast. For more resources to organize and style your busy life, head over to everything with style.com and connect with me on Instagram at everything with Style.
Mom, if this episode was helpful for you, please share it with your friends rate and review it on it. That's Apple Podcast now and let me know what you'd like to hear about next. Thanks again for listening and happy organizing.