Holiday Organizing Ideas
for Kids Bedrooms

What? Santa can't possibly squeeze any more toys or goodies into your home? These holiday organizing ideas for kids bedrooms can help.

Get into the spirit of the holidays and spend a weekend cleaning out the toy box to make room for new holiday arrivals. Donate gently used toys, books, and clothing to charity; ditch the rest.

These holiday organizing ideas for kids' bedrooms do two great things: They get rid of out-of-date toys and free up space for incoming gifts from Santa.

Holiday Organizing Ideas for Kids Bedrooms

Organize a play area inside a child's room.

Holiday organizing ideas for kids bedrooms.

You've got too much kid stuff. Yet, try to chuck that one-armed Barbie or dented dump truck; suddenly, your child can't live without it.

How do you lose the excess and keep the peace? These holiday organizing ideas for getting the kids on board with holiday downsizing can help.

Appeal to their better nature: Explain that Christmas is a time of giving and sharing and that a lot of little kids will get nothing this year if we don't give and share. This will help declutter and instill a sense of compassion in your kids.

Enlist their help: Kids will be much less upset to see their toys go if they are part of the process. Let them help select which toys will stay and which will go.

Look at everything: Use this opportunity to reorganize as well. Have the kids dump all their toys in a big pile in the middle of the floor and go through everything, piece by piece.

Use the three-basket approach: Put three plastic laundry baskets in each kid's room. Ask them to fill the red basket with broken toys, the blue basket with toys they no longer play with, and the pink basket with toys they want to keep. Oh, and the pink and blue baskets must have equal amounts of items.

The fourth basket: Try this strategy if too many toys wind up in the keeper basket. Have the child fill a cardboard box with toys he's not playing with and store the box in the attic or the garage. By summer, he might be ready to part with them—especially if you let him sell them at a garage sale and keep the proceeds to buy one special new toy.

Create a holding zone: If your child is too young to make an objective decision, store broken or ignored toys and books out of sight where she won't find them. If she hasn't missed an item in a month or two, it's fair game for donation or disposal. Just cart it away in a black garbage bag so she won't see it go.

Create a festive mood: To set the right atmosphere for sharing, heat mulled cider on the stove to fill the house with the aromas of Christmas. Put Christmas music on and sing along as you work.

Once you've culled the toy box, you might have enough energy to tackle the kids' closets and drawers. There might be room for Christmas after all!