As you gather with loved ones during the Thanksgiving holiday, it's essential to cherish not just the joyful moments but also the importance of prioritizing your family's health and well-being. In line with the spirit of National Family Health History Day on November 23, there's no better time to foster open discussions about your health and ensure preparedness for any unforeseen emergencies. We encourage the sharing of an emergency contact card (download and print one here) as a thoughtful gesture, emphasizing the significance of preparedness and support in safeguarding your family's health during this meaningful occasion.

By sharing an emergency contact card during this time, families can:

Encourage Proactive Health Awareness

Discussing health history encourages family members to be more aware of potential genetic or hereditary health risks, allowing for proactive measures and better disease prevention.

Strengthen Family Support

Sharing an emergency contact card emphasizes the importance of familial support, ensuring that essential contact information is readily available for quick access during any health-related emergencies.

Promote Open Communication

Encouraging open conversations about health history promotes a culture of transparency and understanding within the family, fostering a supportive environment for addressing any health concerns.

Through the simple act of sharing an emergency contact card, families can embrace the spirit of National Family Health History Day, fostering a culture of health awareness and preparedness, and reinforcing the value of unity and support during the Thanksgiving holiday.

For more information on National Family Health History Day and related health initiatives, visit the National Today website.

If you’re thinking that downsizing might be in the cards over the next year or two, you can really get a jumpstart on paring down your possessions by starting with an edit of your holiday decor.

Streamlined holiday decor in neatly organized, well-labeled storage boxes is a home decorator’s dream! With a little work, this can be your reality. 

Holiday decorating should be fun. It should conjure up wonderful family memories. It should not be a chore because of the amount of stuff you have to contend with.

There are certainly going to be treasured family decorations that came from your parents and grandparents that you will pass along lovingly to your children when the time is right. These are special and should be stored in special padded cartons to preserve and protect them.

Those aren’t the items we are discussing today. I am talking about those junky plastic ornaments that leave a messy trail of glitter. The little Rudolphs with broken legs, the Singing Santa that no longer croons, and the dozens of little dreidels that were once used as party favors at a long-ago Chanukah party. 

Downsize and Organize Your Holiday Decor

Think about it: do you have boxes and boxes of decorations that you don’t even bother to take out from your attic or basement? Commit to going through them one last time to see if there is anything that really warrants saving, then donate, sell, or toss the rest.

1. You don’t need broken ornaments. You will never reattach that little hook on top.

2. Throw out the package of little hooks you bought five years ago for when you thought you would actually repair them. 

3. Pull out some of the really cute holiday cards and decorations your kids made back when they were young and display them. Take a photo of the rest, offer them to your children, and when they say “no thank you” toss them out.

4. Donate “still good” but “not good enough” items.

5. When it comes to putting items away, you can store round ornaments in egg cartons to protect them.

6. You can buy a store-bought reel for your Christmas tree lights, but you can also get creative and be efficient by wrapping them around coffee cans.

7. Sort, label, and consider storing much of your treasures in clear bins to help you identify quickly what is inside.

8. Put items away in reverse order to how you need them. For example, make sure you can access the skirt for the tree before the tree stand. 

9. Take a photo of your decorated rooms and store all of those items together in a storage box with the photo mounted on the outside for easy-peasy setup.

Your taste may have changed over the years. Perhaps your old tree was brightly colored and now you prefer a softer pallet. You can list unused decor on Facebook’s free marketplace groups. They will get gobbled up. 

The time to start this project is now! As you are putting away the ceramic pumpkins, the witch cauldron for candy, and the skeleton door decor, go over some of the Halloween things in the box that didn’t make it out, and think about getting rid of some of it. 

And if turkeys, gourds, and pilgrims are part of your decorating plan, you can use those decorations as a warmup to the big purge.

Of course, if you’d like help, give me a call.