Spooky Season Simplified? Here are 5 Things to Declutter After Halloween
Now that spooky season has subsided, and our homes are transitioning, it’s a great time to declutter our Halloween items. Whether your home is transitioning into fall decorations for Thanksgiving or Christmas decorations for some of my other readers, the time to declutter is now. Let’s go through a few things from Halloween.
Post-Halloween decluttering includes the following five categories for me (and maybe for you too!): Halloween decorations, candy, costumes, seasonal clothing, and trick-or-treat trinkets.
1. Decorations
Halloween decorations could include your generic fall decorations, but for the purposes of this post, I am focusing on actual Halloween-inspired décor. This includes, but is not limited to, jack-o-lanterns, bats, spiders and their webs, cauldrons, witches, ghosts, goblins, and ghouls.
When you’re taking down your Halloween décor, ask yourself a few questions:
- Did I enjoy putting these decorations up?
- Did I enjoy the final product after decorating?
- Were any of these items too complicated for me to want to set it up next year?
- Do I want to focus on one specific theme next year?
- Do I want to simplify my decorations overall?
- Are there any decorations I simply don’t like anymore?
I do not decorate my home for Halloween. I have in the past, but I found that I didn’t enjoy the decorations enough to continue doing it. The effort was not worth the limited enjoyment I experienced. I personally find more enjoyment in simple fall seasonal décor. My husband on the other hand has the inspiration to deck our house out and make it super spooky. He is more than welcome to buy the décor, put it up, take it down, and store it if it suits him. That is something I have said “no thank you” to.
2. Candy
Mindless consumption of candy after Halloween is common, by children and their families. I am in no way shaming anyone who decides to keep candy out, however, I have found for my husband and myself we prefer it to be minimal.
Immediately after Halloween, my husband goes through the candy and picks out what he wants to keep for himself, and I usually keep a few pieces as well. I also pull out and keep a few items for my daughter. I often encourage her to try new things because her diet is extremely limited. Currently, she doesn’t eat candy. We pass what we don’t personally want on to a friend, family member, or neighbor.
3. Costumes
When it comes to decluttering costumes, there are questions you can ask yourself here too.
- Are there any costumes that no longer fit any of my children?
- Can we re-use any of these costumes in the following years?
- Are there parts of the costumes that can become universal or used for new costume ideas next year?
Keeping costumes stored for re-use is an honorable and sustainable choice in my opinion. Sometimes there are pieces of costumes that can be re-purposed and made into something new. However, if you see no use in your items for the upcoming years, let them go. Donate them to your local thrift store or a family in need.
4. Seasonal Clothing
There are two Halloween specific shirts I’m thinking of for this example. One is a really cute ghost shirt. The other is a shirt with a cat popping out of a jack-o-lantern. They are both my daughters and are both already a little snug from last year. We will use them as pajamas for the remainder of the fall season. Afterwards, we will donate these items to a thrift store for another family to enjoy. If you have any Halloween specific clothing items that you can’t find use for after this year, the time is now to declutter them.
5. Trick-or-Treat Trinkets
My daughter loves the cute little trinkets that are passed out during Halloween. After two or three weeks of having these items though, she usually grows tired of playing with them. Often, she receives several of the same type of toy. In that case, I typically declutter most of them and keep a few for the next year. I add the ones I keep into her rotation of toys, which I rotate roughly once a month.
I re-use a lot of these toys as Easter egg treasures the following year. If they aren’t Halloween based such as skeletons, jack-o-lanterns, or ghosts – they can easily be placed in an egg and hunted for later.
Conclusion
Lighten your load by decluttering some of your Halloween items within the month of November. With the “big” holidays coming up soon, doing this declutter can help you feel ahead of the game rather than waiting until closer to Thanksgiving.
If you even find one item to leave your home, that’s one less item you have to manage in the future. Whether you declutter decorations, candy, costumes, seasonal clothes, or trinkets from trick-or-treating, you are taking back a little bit of control of your environment and finding the purpose and use behind your items. Keep it up! 
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