I’m a big fan of seasonal decorations. It’s always fun to brighten up the house with a few holiday-themed items. But, like everything else we own, these items can easily accumulate and turn into clutter. A good declutter of my seasonal treasures is long overdue. This week’s task in the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge is decluttering Easter decorations.

This post was originally published in April 2021 and republished in April 2024.

The National Retail Foundation reports that the average American will spend $179 on Easter in 2024. Almost half of those who responded to the survey said they plan to buy Easter decorations. So, I’m not alone!

Over the years, we’ve accumulated a lot of decorations for various holidays—St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween and, of course, Christmas. But, as my collection has grown, I notice I tend to pull out my favourites every year. Other items sit in a tote box year after year, never seeing the light of day. That’s a sign that it’s time to declutter.

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.

Are you ready for week 14? Let’s get decluttering!

Week 14 – Decluttering Easter decorations

We store our Easter décor in a tote box in the basement. It’s always so exciting to get it out and decorate the house. I don’t know about you, but that long winter stretch between Christmas and Easter feels like an eternity some years.  

Here’s what I was greeted with when we opened the box for the first time this year. The box was full, but I was pretty sure some of it hadn’t been put out for several years.

I’ll get to decluttering in a minute. First, here are some of my Easter favourites on display.

This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

Here are my tips and learnings from week 14.

• Before you pack away your decorations for another year, take time to go through the items you didn’t put out this year. Ask yourself why you didn’t put them out. Do you not have space? Have you fallen out of love with these items? Are they broken? If you didn’t put them out this year, chances are you won’t use them next year either.
• If you’re hanging on to home-made items that your kids made when they were small, take a picture of them and then say good-bye. I decided when my kids were small that I’d keep only a few special pieces of writing and artwork from every school year in a scrapbook.

Let’s keep in touch! Join my mailing list and I’ll email you when I add a new post.

What I got rid of

Here’s what I got rid of this week. I put all the usable items on our local Buy Nothing group on Facebook and they were snapped up quickly.

• 2 bunny masks
• 1 set of bunny ears
• 2 partially-used packages of Easter basket grass
• 2 packages of treat bags
• 1 egg cup and spoon
• 1 Easter tote bag
• 3 miscellaneous decorations
• 9 miscellaneous items lurking at the bottom of the tote box that I either recycled or threw away

Seasonal items are easy to ignore in our decluttering efforts because they get packed away and we only look at them once a year. That’s why I made a point of putting them on the schedule for the challenge.

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 haven’t added any new Easter decorations since I wrote my original post, so I didn’t expect to get rid of much this week. One place I did see an opportunity was a huge bag of plastic eggs. My daughters were both home for Easter, but we passed on the Easter Egg hunt this year. I bundled up this bag of 25 plastic eggs and offered them on the Buy Nothing group. They were claimed quickly.

It made me happy that those colourful eggs will bring a smile to someone else’s face this year. I did keep a few, though, in case I need them in the future.

So that’s week 14 done.

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 have a lot of seasonal decorations? Tell me about your favourites below.