Dec 21, 2024

What to keep, what to return, and what to buy in the last week of December

The last week of December is a strange retail moment. Half the shelves are being cleared, the other half are being restocked for January, and most households are holding a small pile of things somebody else chose for them. It is a good week to be deliberate.

Handle returns first, not last

Return windows after a gifting season are generous compared with the rest of the year, but they are not infinite, and they vary wildly by retailer and by category. Do the boring administrative pass early: find the packaging, find the gift receipt, and sort the pile into keep, return, and pass along.

One rule our readers repeat and we agree with: if you are on the fence about something, keep the box for a month. Almost every regretted return is a thing somebody got rid of in week one and wanted in week six.

Passing things along

Not everything unwanted needs to go back to a store. A duplicate gift is a perfectly good birthday present in March, and a collectible or building set that did not land with one child often lands with another. Put a label on it and put it somewhere you will find it.

The last week is a good week to buy three things

Anything holiday-specific you will use again. Lights, wrapping supplies, storage tubs for decorations. You already know what you ran out of this year.
Out-of-season basics. This is the week to look at warm-weather footwear, and it is why a pair of Birkenstock flip flop sandals shows up on a December list without anybody blinking.
The repair items you kept deferring. A roll of heavy duty mounting tape and an hour of attention will close out more household annoyances than most people expect.

And a good week to avoid one

Do not buy organizing systems this week. Every year, the last days of December sell an enormous quantity of bins, racks, and drawer inserts to people in the middle of a decluttering mood, and a large share of those end up stored empty. Wait until you have actually cleared the space and know what shape the gap is. The bins will still exist in February.

Take ten minutes to write next year down

While it is fresh, write three notes somewhere you will find them next November: what you cooked, what you ran out of, and which gifts genuinely landed. This is the single highest-value ten minutes in the whole shopping year. Our readers who do it tell us the following December costs less and takes less out of them, and the reason is simply that they are not rebuilding the plan from memory.

Then stop shopping for a couple of weeks. January has its own list, and it is a better one when you arrive at it rested rather than in the middle of momentum.