October is rolling along, and we are well and truly into fall now. Here in Canada, we celebrate both Thanksgiving and Halloween in the same month—two great reasons to love October. I hope you’ll join me for week 42 of the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge. This week, I’m decluttering fall and Halloween items.

Over the years, we’ve amassed quite a collection of seasonal decorations. I love to decorate our house for any occasion: St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Canada Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas. But all those decorations take up a lot of space. It’s important to go through them from time to time.

A clear-out of our fall and Halloween decorations was long overdue. Let’s get decluttering!

This post was originally published in October 2021 and republished in November 2024.

What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?

In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.

• 52-Week Decluttering Challenge
• Week 1 – Easy Decluttering Checklist

You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.

Week 42 – Decluttering fall and Halloween items

We store our decorations in tote boxes marked for each season. Here’s a photo of our fall tote box.

Every year, I get out the tote box, pull out the items I want to use, and leave the rest in the bottom of the tote. It had been years since I’d emptied out the tote to see what was lurking in the bottom. Let’s see what I found!

What I got rid of

This week, I got rid of a total of 28 items.

• 2 sets of window clings
• 1 empty package
• 10 old crafts
• 1 reflective armband
• 2 packages “Freaky Fabric” that my daughter bought for a zombie princess costume a few years ago. She bought 3 packages and only used one.
• 2 giant spider webs
• 4 pumpkin flashlights
• 2 creepy figurines
• 1 unopened package of Halloween makeup
• 1 puzzle that was sadly missing a couple of pieces
• 2 books

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This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

Here are my tips and learnings from week 42.

• After you’re finished decorating, take a good hard look at the items left in the tote box. If you didn’t put them out this year, there’s little chance you will use them again. Those items are ripe for decluttering!
• The best time to declutter seasonal items is before the holiday because it’s a lot easier to find takers for your items on Buy Nothing, or Buy & Sell, groups. If you wait until after the holiday, people will have moved on to the next occasion and won’t be interested any more. I posted a bunch of items on our Buy Nothing group and they were snapped up within a few minutes.
• Don’t forget to go through old Halloween costumes. I did that a couple of years ago and sold several of my girls’ old costumes on our Buy & Sell board at work. Kids’ costumes are always in big demand this time of year.
• I also learned I need to stay away from the dollar store. So much of what I got rid of came from there when our kids were small. They served their purpose, and I suppose we got our money’s worth out of the items, but they really are mostly cheap junk. I’m sure our landfills are full of items from dollar stores and fast-food restaurants.

For more tips on storing and organizing your holiday treasures, you’ll love this article I collaborated on with Redfin, Fall Holiday Decoration Storage Tips From the Experts.

2024 Update

It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.

I didn’t expect to find much this time around since we’ve been doing well at not adding to the clutter by buying more stuff. I did, however, stumble across a bag of small trinkets that I overlooked last time around. In total, I got rid of 13 broken items, and an assortment of 51 fridge magnets, spider rings, other rings and sticker pages. All that adds up to a grand total of 64 for the week.

So that’s week 42 done. I wish you all a ghoulish and spooky (but not too spooky) Halloween.

If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!

Do you like to decorate your house for Halloween or Thanksgiving? Tell us your stories below.