The holiday season is a flurry of activity! Seeing family members or friends, giving and receiving gifts, eating delicious food, enjoying some wine, travelling to different locations. And amidst this flurry of activity, you tend to accumulate things - whether it's gifts, leftover food, baked goods, items that people forgot at your home when they were visiting etc. When the new year starts off, it's a good idea to take note of these new possessions and decide what to do with them so they don't go to waste.

If you received gifts that you know you won't use, you shouldn't feel obligated to hold onto it because someone gave it to you. They may have been re-gifting it themselves! Keeping items such as these around will only create more stress in your life, as they make you feel bad for not using it. Instead, give it to someone who will enjoy it, whether by donating or re-gifting it!

Same goes for cards that are now cluttering your surfaces - keep the ones that you absolutely love, that have beautiful written notes in them, but recycle the rest (as long as they don't have glitter or other non-recyclable materials on them). Just because the artwork on them is pretty doesn't mean you have to keep them.

If you have lots of leftovers, freeze some of them so they don't start to go bad in your fridge! Same goes for baked goods, that way you don't eat them all at once before they go bad…

If you’re on a roll, check out other areas of your home! Maybe your closets need to be gone through. Or maybe you can organize your home office paperwork before tax season.

Whatever the case may be, take a look at your space, and realign your values and goals for the year with the items around you. Don't hold onto items you don't want or like, and have boxes ready to go for items to be donated, recycled or given back to someone. This will keep your space more organized, but also will reduce your stress after the holidays.