A Chic Paris Holiday Season – Day 6 – Declutter Before Decorate
December 8, 2020
In chapter 1 of A Chic and Simple Christmas, author Fiona Ferris has a topic heading titled “Declutter what doesn’t fit your vision of a chic Christmas.” In this section, Fiona writes that each year, she donates those of her Christmas decorations that no longer “feel right” for her house. That way, someone else can use and love the items. Fiona also benefits because she has the joy of having only those decorations in view that truly are meaningful and beautiful to her eye.
I didn’t have the challenge of evaluating my collection of Christmas decorations this year to see which ones “spark joy” as Marie Kondo would say. We don’t have any of our family’s accumulated Christmas decorations at all with us in Paris this Christmas. When we moved here in January of 2020, our plan was to go back and forth between France and the US pretty regularly and bring back what we needed for each season in a gradual fashion. Like it did for many people, the year 2020 rearranged our plans to something quite different. I’m not complaining – we have made it through this crazy year in such fortunate circumstances that I can only be humbly grateful. In a strange way, after I processed through missing my collection of treasured Christmas things, approaching the season without a single holiday item feels almost freeing.
My Parisian 3-bedroom apartment is comfortably sized but can feel cramped with the accumulated clutter of 4 people (2 of whom are teenagers.) Just a few weeks ago, I wrote here that I went through a decluttering exercise to get rid of little aggravating, “nit-noid” types of things that added annoyance to my day. It actually lasted around a week as I found a few small things each day to address like going through and clearing out piles of paper, putting away the last of the warm-weather stuff, and bringing out and organizing our cold-weather gear. The biggest positive change to the apartment was the addition of an inexpensive coat rack in a corner of the entry room that miraculously cured the unsteady mountain of jackets, coats and scarves that teetered precariously on a nearby tiny chair. As part of the week-long “spread calm” exercise, I also cleared as many horizontal spaces as possible. It was lovely to see open, unfilled horizontal space like the fireplace mantel with only one thing on it or the end tables between the sofa and the side chairs each holding only a small lamp. (That way, there is plenty of space for my tea cup or water glass when I sit down to read my book.)
I’m glad I went through this exercise not only because I eliminated some daily annoyances but also because now we need the visual space. Our holiday season has already generated objects to be added to the room. This past weekend, we put up our tree and decorated it with warm white lights and red and gold balls. That is a big visual addition to the sitting room. I believe I heard the children planning to make a Nativity scene of some type (hopefully, they will place it under the tree.)
By clearing away extraneous clutter a month ago, we have the visual openness to a.) put out some pretty decorations and b.) actually see and enjoy those decorations.
