Get Organized and Start A New Holiday Tradition, Tips by Kathi Burns, CPO – NBC Morning News
(Transcript)
Maury: Now let’s get over to Steven for some ideas on how to start your own holiday traditions at home. Steven…
Steven: Well Maury, holiday traditions are one of the reasons why people look so much forward to this time or year and some of those traditions are passed down through generations, others sort of take on a life of their own. Kathi Burns is a certified professional organizer and is here this morning with some holiday tradition tips but I was thinking about it and some people just sit back and they think the traditions will come to them but really you need to go after it sometimes and make a priority and make it happen, right?
Kathi: Absolutely, especially because we’re so busy so they really need to set the time aside to give your presents, which is a big tradition.
Steven: What was one of the things you were saying, get rid of the old to get ready for the new.
Kathi: Yes please, that could be one day a year to always be like December 15th is the date that the family purges all of their goods, donates them so that it has time to hit the stores to help the needy, and then get ready and give space for the new stuff that’s going to come in from Santa Claus.
Steven: You’ve got some things out here speaking of Santa Claus. This is one of the traditions in our house to have this by the fireplace, right?
Kathi: Exactly. And what you can do if you want to make it a tradition, you can have a cookie baking day with your kids. So the idea is not to have perfection in the cookies but to have cookies that your kids have actually made for Santa.
Steven: The problem in our house is they never last long enough for Santa, right? What do you have here?
Kathi: This is homemade gifts. So instead of going out to the mall and battling with the crowd, you can make homemade rosemary scented oil, a soy based lotion, this is a soy candle that actually smells like chocolate.
Steven: And you say that that’s homemade, how would you make that?
Kathi: It’s homemade, it’s with a soy wax and an essence of chocolate, and it’s a very easy thing. The thing about soy is that it’s not bad for the environment, these are actually glasses that are recycled so it’s again an eco-friendly type of gift and it’s something from your heart because you actually made it.
Steven: Wrapping presents has become…I hate to say this…but it’s become somewhat of a headache in our house because it’s on the chore list for Christmas. You need to get it done and it sort of lingers over you until you get it done. It’s like the Christmas card and getting it out, but what are your ideas in making traditions out of the present wrapping and bringing your friends in on it. How would that work?
Kathi: Have fun with it, so you can get a couple families together, everybody brings their presents and all their gift wrap and just all day long you sit and wrap gifts and socialize with your friends. Or you can do it with the kids so the kids can help wrap. And again, it’s not the perfection of the wrapping, it’s getting the whole involvement with the kids. So you can do it one of two ways, you can do it with grown ups or you can do it a kid’s exercise but it doesn’t need to be a chore, it should turn into really a fun event.
Steven: You know what, that is one of the challenges this time of year isn’t it? You have some information that we can put up on the screen about holiday organizing tips and if you want to…is that to you? Okay.
Kathi: Yes, If you email, [email protected] you’ll receive a free holiday checklist which should help you get more prepared for the holidays. So go ahead and email me: [email protected].
Steven: Kathi, thanks a lot. We’ll head on outside to Whitney. Hey Whitney, Any holiday traditions that you have that you’re particularly fond of?
