7 Things You Should Get Rid Of After Christmas

How to use quick actions on your phone, an easy way to stay organized in the kitchen, and more. December 28, 2021 [View Online]( Good morning! If you’re still blissfully adrift in the timeless stretch between Christmas and New Year’s, then by all means, enjoy it! But for those of us who are feeling the itch to get our houses back in order, use the list of 7 things to get rid of in Today’s Good Thing to kickstart your holiday cleanup. Jillee (P.S. I'm happy to report that the broken link to the digital download in Sunday's newsletter [has been fixed](. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you to everyone who wrote in to bring the issue to my attention!) DAYS UNTIL 🎊 New Year's Day: 4 TODAY'S GOOD THING 7 Things To Get Rid Of After Christmas [Photos of Jillee holding boxes, holiday decor, and magazines.]( When you’re ready to get tidied up again after the holidays, start by getting rid of these 7 things. While the chaos of Christmas morning is a fun and necessary holiday tradition, it’s less fun to carry that clutter and disorganization into the New Year. I usually find that by the time the holidays are over, I’m ready to ditch the clutter and restore my home to its normal, semi-organized state. And now that gift shopping and present wrapping is behind me, I actually have some time and presence of mind to focus on giving myself what many of us would consider one of the best gifts of all: a clean, clutter-free home. Restoring your home back into some semblance of tidiness and organization after the holidays isn’t always easy. But by focusing on the most common sources of post-Christmas clutter first, you can free up some room and make the rest of your cleaning and organizing go a lot more smoothly. In order to help with your post-Christmas decluttering efforts, I put together a list of good places to get started. By the time you’ve checked these items off your decluttering list, you should be feeling much better about the state of your home! Find out which 7 items to get rid of first at the link below. [7 Things To Get Rid Of After Christmas ➜]( Related • [11 Things You Need To Get Rid Of In Your Kitchen]( • [It's Time To Get Rid Of These 5 Things In Your Bedroom]( ⚡️QUICK TIPS⚡️ • Having guests or family over on New Year’s Eve? You’ll find unlimited inspiration for easy and delicious appetizers here. [Read more ➜]( • I don’t use buttermilk very regularly, so whenever I have a half-full carton, I turn to these 12 uses for leftover buttermilk. [Read more ➜]( • If your indoor plants aren’t looking great and you’re not sure why, this common watering problem could be to blame. [Read more ➜]( TECH TIP TUESDAY Explore Your Apps’ Quick Actions [Various photos of quick actions for different apps on an iPhone.]( Whether you’re in a hurry or just know exactly what you want to do, quick actions can help. Did you know that if you want to send a text or post a tweet, you can do it without opening an app first? In fact, you can use several of your apps’ most useful features right from your home screen or the App Library using “quick actions.” Just press and hold an app’s icon to bring up the quick actions menu, which should include shortcuts for its most useful or commonly used features. One of the quick actions available for the Messages app is sending a text to a pinned conversation, which makes it super easy to shoot off a quick update to your spouse. And for social networks like Facebook and Twitter, you can use quick actions to write a new post, which is much faster than waiting for the whole app to load and then trying to remember where the option to write a new post is. Here are some other apps with quick actions that can make your life easier: • Camera: Take Selfie or Record Video • Settings: Bluetooth or Wi-Fi • Clock: Create Alarm or Start Stopwatch • Maps: Mark My Location or Send My Location • Instagram: Chats or View Activity Android Users: No special instructions needed here! Recent Android operating systems feature shortcuts for all your favorite apps, which are essentially the same thing as quick actions on iPhone, and you can access them the same way—just press on an app icon to see the available shortcuts for that app. COOKING Keep Your Ingredients On A Baking Sheet [A photo of dishes of ingredients on a baking sheet.]( If you tend to leave things in various places all over the kitchen, use this tip to stay more organized. A baking sheet isn’t only useful for baking cookies or making sheet pan dinners—it’s also a handy tool for keeping yourself organized when you’re working in the kitchen. A baking sheet makes an ideal tray for your mise en place, a French cooking term that loosely means “all the prepared ingredients you’ll need to cook your meal.” In practice, mise en place looks like a number of bowls or containers filled with various chopped or diced ingredients. To avoid scattering them in various places around the kitchen, set all your prepped ingredients on a baking sheet. That way they all stay in one place, and they're easy to move wherever you need them. For instance, if your cutting board is on the opposite side of the kitchen from your stove, you can prep all your ingredients over there, then move all of them over to the stove in one trip. If you’re like me and tend to be a little (or a lot) disorganized in the kitchen, this simple and effective tip can be a huge time-saver! JILLEE'S PICK Captivating Codebreakers In The Rose Code [The front cover of ]( While I rarely give out 5-star reviews on Goodreads, I gave one to [The Rose Code by Kate Quinn]( without hesitation. I have read and enjoyed many of Kate Quinn's historical fiction novels, but The Rose Code is easily my favorite of them—it’s just that good! The story centers on 3 women from different backgrounds who come together to help the British decode German military communications at [Bletchley Park]( during World War II. They are some of the most fascinating female protagonists I’ve encountered in some time, each one with positive and negative attributes that help bring her to life. The Rose Code has plenty of twists that kept me captivated throughout, and the book's tense, action-packed climax had me on the edge of my seat in a way that only the most riveting stories can. The bottom line: it's one of the best historical fiction novels I’ve read in a long time, and a must-read for fans of the genre. (If you do read this book and enjoy it, or if you’ve already done so and liked it, you’ll probably enjoy the PBS television miniseries [The Bletchley Circle]( too! Both this miniseries and The Rose Code were inspired by the real female codebreakers of Bletchley Park. The Bletchley Circle is available to stream on [DIRECTV]( and [Peacock]( [See The Rose Code by Kate Quinn on Amazon ➜]( WHAT IN THE WORLD WIDE WEB Have A Ball Learning About New Year’s Eve At Times Square [An image of a laptop displaying the Times Square New Year's Eve website.]( The New Year’s Eve Ball in Times Square is an iconic symbol that’s inextricably linked with ringing in the New Year, and not just here in the US! Every year, people from all over the world descend on New York City to join the celebration and witness the Times Square Ball Drop in person. Whether you’re interested in facts and figures about the Ball itself (like the fact that it’s 12 feet in diameter, weighs nearly 6 tons, and features 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles) or want to watch a livestream of the Times Square celebration, you can find all of that and more on the official [Times Square New Year’s Eve website](. [Visit the Wishing Wall page]( to submit a wish or personal goal and have it added to the confetti that gets released over Times Square at midnight. But you need to submit your wish today if you want it included in this year’s confetti, so don’t delay! There’s also a lot of [interesting history]( on the site too, both about the New Year’s Eve Ball and about New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square in general. Check it out for yourself at the [Times Square NYE website](. A FEW MORE THINGS... Pick Up The Phone: It’s National Call a Friend Day, a dedicated day to calling anyone you’ve been meaning to catch up with. Whether they live across the city or across the country, use this annual event as an excuse to brighten both of your days by giving them a call. We may not be able to be with all of our loved ones during the holidays, but they’re always just a phone call away! On This Day: In 1958, the Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants in sudden death overtime to win the NFL Championship. Widely known as “[The Greatest Game Ever Played]( the 1958 Championship Game garnered national attention and led to a surge in professional football's popularity in the years that followed. What did you think of today's email? [Not good]( | [Just okay]( | [Loved it!]( 🏠[Visit the By Jillee Shop]( 🤗 [Join OGT Free]( Let's connect! [facebook]( [instagram]( [pinterest]( [youtube]( If you have thoughts, comments, questions or a tip or trick you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you! My inbox is always open, so just hit "reply" and let me know what's on your mind. See you tomorrow! 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