New Home Source Blog

Holiday lights still up? Develop a plan to store your holiday decorations so the task doesn’t feel like a chore.

By Patricia L. Garcia

Are your holiday decorations still greeting guests and neighbors? We know, it’s a drag to take that stuff down.

“People tend to put off putting their decorations away because it seems like an overwhelming process to them,” says Barry Izsak, owner of Arranging It All in Austin, Texas, and a past president of the National Association of Professional Organizers. “Why? One reason is that they don’t have an organized process or way to put them away.”

So, if you’re dreading the take down (trust us, your neighbors are ready for it!), arm yourself with a plan and get to storing holiday decorations in no time at all. Here’s how:

One Step At a Time

Here’s the deal: If you build up any project in your head, it can become overwhelming. So don’t! Take the process of taking down and storing items one step at a time.

“They try to do too much as once,” Izsak says. “If this is something you don’t like to do, then tackle it one room at a time or one aspect at a time: the tree, outside lights, the mantle, the kitchen, etc. In other words, break your task into more manageable pieces and do it a little at a time.”

To help make the task more manageable, don’t be afraid to enlist help from your family too, says Helene Segura, a certified professional organizer in San Antonio, Texas.

Store Like Items Together

“Store items that are displayed or used together in the same storage container,” says Christina Hidek, owner of Streamlined Living, a professional organization company based in Cleveland, Ohio. “The next time the items are brought out, they’ll all be together, ready to decorate your space.”

You can also store items by room or by themes and make sure you’re storing items so they’re ready for the next year, Segura says. “If you decorate by room, you might have a bin for the living room, a bin for the family room, etc.,” she says, adding to do the same for each theme, should you decorate in that manner. “Think about what would help you be ready the minute you pop off the lids next year.”

More Tips

Here are some specific ways to store items, from Izsak:

• Wrap holiday tree lights and extension cords around wrapping paper and paper towel tubes to keep them free from tangles.
• Organize holiday tree decorations in layers in big boxes in the order that you put them on the tree.
• Store small, breakable tree ornaments in empty egg cartons.
• Bows, ribbons and wrapping paper can be stored in a drawer, bin or in decorative boxes and canisters
  along with scissors and tape.
• Rolled wrapping paper can be stored upright in a clean plastic wastebasket or tall round canister.
• Gift bags can be stored in square or rectangular plastic boxes according to size.
• Under-the-bed plastic boxes can be used to create a centralized one-stop gift wrapping station.
• Store your already decorated artificial tree covered with large garbage bags after removing the most fragile ornaments.
• Before putting away items to be stored in your garage or attic, be sure to label everything with a fuller description than “holiday” or “Xmas.”
• If you use see-through storage containers or color-coded ones (red and green for Christmas, blue for Easter/Hanukah, orange for Halloween), then no labeling is even necessary!

Give Yourself Deadlines

There’s no hard and fast rule as to when you should take down your holiday decorations. If you live in an area where neighbors are encouraged to do their own thing, you could get away with keeping items up all year. However, if that’s not the sort of area you live in, it’s important to observe unsaid community “rules.” Regardless, giving yourself a deadline — say the first weekend after a holiday or 10 days after a holiday — will help you mentally prepare for the task.

Store Decorations in an Accessible Place

While you don’t want to store your decorations in a spot that would easily be cluttered, you do want to store decorations in a place that is not hard to access.

“People who store their decorations up in the attic or some other out-of-the-way place that is cumbersome to access are less likely to decorate and use them every year because it’s such a nuisance to get them down,” Izsak points out.

Whether you are storing decorations for Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day or the like, you can use these tips to help bring some holiday cheer into your home without letting that spirit linger on a little too long. Have fun each holiday — and don’t get bogged down by the thought of storing your holiday decorations.

Patricia L. Garcia is content manager for NewHomeSource, where you can search for and get information on new homes and new construction communities. You can find her on Google+.