Every year when I pack up the decorations after Christmas, I collect all of the garlands together in one box, I get all the candlesticks together in another box, and all my nativity sets go into their own box. We label the boxes "garlands," "candles," "nativity sets,"...which seems great until you remember that you have a garland for the front door, and a garland for the mantle, and a garland for the hood...and which one is which??? Same with wreaths and nativities!
And every year when we take down the Christmas boxes out of storage, we bring them all to the same floor. Then we're running up and down the stairs for going on a week to put everything where it should go. And you know what? I'm not doing that next year!
How I'm Going to Start Storing Holiday Decorations
My new method? I’m going to pack up our Christmas decorations by room!
There will be boxes labeled "kitchen greenery" that includes the kitchen garland, the stems, the wreaths. And then another box for "kitchen counters" that will have carefully packed ceramic gingerbread houses, Santa mugs, and platters that are always on display in the kitchen.
Then next year, I can just take all the kitchen Christmas decoration boxes down from the attic and they can go straight to the room they're destined for, instead of putting everything at the top of the stairs and running every which way. I don’t know how I haven’t thought of this before!
Packing it up by room makes so much more sense to me. Like, I have multiple Christmas trees, but in the past, I've taken all the ornaments off and grouped them together. Even though I usually redistribute the ornaments to the same trees!
Shop Christmas Storage & Organization
The Best Way to Store Christmas Ornaments
I think we feel kind of forced into feeling that we have to group "like" with "like". Because there are bags and boxes that seem designed for specific types of products. You may have an ornament storage box and think everything needs to go in there. But if you have two trees that you usually decorate, and one is for your kids and one is for the family, maybe you get two ornament storage bins! I have all of my Precious Moments ornaments on our living room tree, and those are all going in the same box from now on.
Bins | Shelves | Work Light | Label Pockets | Label Cards
I really wanted to tie up this Christmas storage hack with how I'm "thinking outside the box," but it's not coming naturally :) So let's just say, I'm reinventing my post-Christmas decor clean-up with this storage hack and saving myself a LOT of time next year.
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I must be the only person, who likes to change things up yearly. Wreaths, garland, tree, same place sure. Or, maybe?? But everything else is mixed up from the year before.
The room by room idea is a game changer! Makes so much sense cause you can do one room a day and not have constant mess. The only problem is that now I need to get smaller bins
I’ve been doing this for years! It helps so much. I store decorations by the room they’ll be displayed in and ornaments by the tree they go on. It makes things so much easier, especially when you have multiple trees.
We started something similar last year...I bought two smaller boxes to go INSIDE the big box that holds our artificial tree, and now the ornaments, garlands, lights, and tree are all stored together in one big box. We usually decorate the tree last, and this year we left that big box in the garage when we got out all the other decorations.
This is how I always store decor for Christmas and also for Fall/ Halloween. Sometimes I end up with not quite full tubs (am looking at you, downstairs entry way) but I've learned to just leave it partial. All five of my trees have their own ornament boxes too. I don't have themed trees per se, but like goes with like.
I have been doing this for years. It is the only way to have a calm Christmas set up. I have my mantle stuff in one box, my Santas for behind the sofa in one box and so on. Best way to organize everything. You will love it next year when it comes time to decorate, so much less confusion and fuss!