A year ago: unholidays and clutter-free gifting

November is zooming along and many of us have started to let the idea of the winter holidays creep into our consciousnesses. Thanksgiving is a mere three weeks away. Last year at this time I wrote about the fun you can have by creating your own holiday, or choosing a less widely celebrated one to be your annual entertaining ritual as a way to spread out the fun (and stress) of the holiday season.

I also posted the first of what seemed like endless entries about clutter-free gifts. These ideas, broken down into general categories, are good year round for any gift-giving situation. I'll be reposting them in one giant roundup later in the month, but you can check out the full list of them here, if you want to get a jump-start on brainstorming.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to throw out a few things you might not want to get the clutter-conscious person (unless they expressly ask for such items):

• Magazine subscriptions will add to their reading pile and keep coming every month
• Live plants create work and possible stress if they are not good at taking care of living things
• Fancy foodstuffs or alcohol if they are not foodies or drinkers, they will just gather dust or be regifted

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by chatirygirl

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com