For many, decorating your home and entryway for the holidays is both enjoyable and rewarding. Garland flanking your front door, wreaths with bows on windows, lights on the bushes, and a beautifully-lit tree full of ornaments makes a house feel like a home during the holidays. As nice as it is to stand back and admire your work as you approach the holidays, most holiday decorators dread what needs to be done once the holidays are over: storing all those decorations.
You may be tempted to toss items into bins or plastic bags to store them. But eleven months from now when you’re ready to decorate again, you’ll regret that decision. With a little creative forethought, you can organize your décor as you box it up for next year.
There are a few options for the containers you use to store your tree ornaments, light strings, wreaths, garlands, and other décor items. From plastic bins to cardboard boxes to plastic bags, first consider where the containers will be stored in the off-season. If you use an unventilated area for storage, you may want to avoid plastic bags. In the heat and humidity of the summer, décor with metal hooks or other metal components could rust, staining surrounding items. If your storage area has the potential for moisture, such as in a storage shed or damp basement, avoid using cardboard boxes.
If this is your first year of really organizing your holiday décor for storage, consider taking everything down and making separate piles of like items. Outdoor garlands and their light strings should be stored together, your tree ornament bin should also contain your tree lights and hooks, and your gift wrapping pile should have wrapping paper, gift bags, ribbon, tissue, and gift tags.
Light strings can be a bear to untangle if you don’t store them properly when taking them down after the holidays. For outdoor light strings hung around windows or along your gutters, carefully remove them from your home along with any hooks used to keep them in place. Lay them out flat and wind them around spools or sections of cardboard, marking each strand or set of strands with the area of your home where they are hung. Similarly for garland hung around your entry door, if you have light strings on the garland keep it attached to make re-hanging easier next year. Garland can be coiled into a pile and stored in a storage bin or plastic bag.
Retailers’ shelves are filled with storage containers for just about every holiday décor item imaginable. Wreath bags, divided ornament boxes, plastic spools for string lights, and gift wrap organizers can certainly make storing your items quite a bit easier. But with a little imagination, you can use everyday household items as storage containers and will cost you a lot less.
Zip lock bags come in various sizes and are perfect for non-fragile items and take up less space than most items’ original containers. Disposable food storage containers are great for smaller items such as ornament hooks, ribbon, and spare light bulbs. Egg cartons are perfect for storing tree ornaments and other small items. Empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls have many uses, from storing candles and icicle ornaments to inserting into ribbon loops to keep their shape. Cardboard wine cases often come with a cardboard grid insert, making it perfect for ornament or gift wrapping storage.
And a final tip: label, label, label! Use masking tape and permanent marker to label each bin and container. Group like items together whenever possible, such as tree ornaments with your tree lights and garland. You may want to have an “Open First” box, which would contain items you’ll need priority access to next season. This can include your tree stand, holiday cookie cutters, and blank holiday cards. If you have certain areas of your home where you hang garlands that are a specific size, label their location, such as stair railing or entry door.
With a little planning, labeling, and storing when putting away your holiday décor this year, next year’s decorating should be much simpler to accomplish!
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