The Christmas season has come and gone ... and next year, you vow to do better. How to simplify your holidays? Choose an organization plan!

Here at Organized Christmas, we know that preparing for the holiday season is a very individual decision.

Some folks prepare for Christmas instinctively: throughout the year, they stock up on gift items, tuck away baked goods, and organize decor storage as a matter of course.

Then there are the rest of us, who are stuck watching these enviable organized ones from the sidelines. Yet we, too, want to cruise through the holiday season, relaxed, prepared and ready to celebrate.

The solution? A holiday organization plan.

Clever blogger, Like Merchant Ships, has a great tip for storing and organizing gift bags: a ladder hook!

Check out this oversized hook from Big Lots (purchase price: $1.50) for a neat and easy way to store gift bags for reuse:

Store And Organize Gift Bags The Easy Way

It's over for another year--but wait! Before you pack away the lights and ornaments willy-nilly, try these strategies from RealSimple.com.

Whether it's recording the year's decor themes, storing ornaments safely, or dealing with too much stuff for the space available, you'll find answers to holiday put-away questions:

Storing Holiday Decorations

Holiday decorating takes center stage in many homes--until the season ends. How do you store holiday decorations safely during the rest of the year?

Check out these tips from RDLiving.com, to make holiday items easy to find:

Storing Holiday Decorations

So you haven't been planning menus, defrosting turkeys or pre-preparing side dishes for the last week? Do we have a Thanksgiving countdown checklist for you!

Here you go: a last-minute guide to getting the bird on the table anyway, from OutOfTheFryingPan.com. It's a bare-bones Wednesday night plan to get you from zero to sixty by next day:

Last Minute Thanksgiving Survival List

If it's your turn to host Thanksgiving dinner (and the thought has you paralyzed), here's help.

This comprehensive checklist from FamilyFun.com will take you from today until Turkey Day, in organized style. Get organized for a great Thanksgiving feast:

Thanksgiving Countdown Checklist

So what if it's summer?

Smart holiday planners "think Christmas" ahead of time--and summer is a natural time to get a head start on holiday planning.

Click the read more link below for planning pointers from Celebrating Christmas online magazine.

More tips on packing away holiday decorations? Sure! Try this how-to checklist from eHow.com:

How To Store Christmas Decorations

As our community members know, you either love her or um, well ... you don't, so take this post with a grain of salt: it's Martha's "Ultimate Holiday Planner".

A lovely printable with lots of recipes, Martha's free planner includes a cute snowman place card craft, a couple of not-so-bad planning checklists, wine glossary and a stain guide.

For those who like this sort of thing, here's the link. In .pdf format, you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and print:

Martha Stewart's Ultimate Holiday Planner