Happy New Year’s Eve, my friends! Can you believe it’s the last day of 2019? This year I decided to get a jump on getting my Christmas decorations down early. Come see a few of my favorite Christmas Storage Solutions!
Usually I leave our Christmas decorations up through the New Year, but this year I got in a hurry to take them down. And after a month or so of the extra decor, to me it starts to feel like clutter. So, the day after Christmas I started the de-construction. Here are a few of my favorite Christmas storage solutions and tips for packing it away!
First, I took down all of the real greenery, which by now started getting brittle and crispy. (It sure looked pretty when it was fresh, though.)
I took down the wreaths and bows on the front of the house. Since it was trash day, it was the perfect time to dispose of the greenery. I save the hangers and bows from year to year and put them loosely in a box marked as such, and store it in the attic. Since we saved a ton of our cardboard moving boxes, these are perfect for bow storage. (and they’re free!)
Several years ago I purchased several storage boxes from Improvements Catalog. They are made from heavy-duty cardboard and have adjustable inserts so you can customize each slot to the size of your ornaments. You can tell my boxes have a few miles on them. They’ve been through several Christmases and a move, but have held up wonderfully, despite the dust!
These boxes are deep allowing for 3 tiers of large ornaments. These are some of my favorites and made of glass so I love being able to take them directly from the trees and place them in the individual dividers for safe keeping. I leave the bows and hooks on the ornaments for easy installation next year.
And the second and third trays go in easily and I top it off with a thin sheet of protective paper, then the lid. No individual wrapping of the ornaments required! Easy-peasy!
The boxes have handy handles on the sides. This one is packed and ready to go back into the attic. (Which is why I’m unconcerned about the dust on top. LOL)
I couldn’t find these exact boxes, but found something similar on Amazon. Buy them once and use them forever!
This year we put fresh garland and lights around our front door. I made a mental note that this look required one entire garland of pine and cedar from Costco. (about 25 feet) Also, I made sure to label the lights I used out front so next year it will be easy to duplicate the look if I choose.
I wrap my strings of lights around a piece of folded cardboard and label it with where the lights go, be it the mantle, tree, banister, or front porch! This is a real-time saver the following year.
For the past few years we’ve used artificial Christmas trees. Although I miss the smell of a real tree, I don’t like the price tag, so it makes sense to use artificial ones. (Interesting Fact: 80% of Americans use artificial trees! via Wikipedia and church service on Christmas Eve.) This tree is from Frontgate and I got it for free a few years ago on Facebook Marketplace. The lady that gave it to me thought half of the lights were burned out so I figured I could just add some extra strands of lights and use it anyway. However, once I got it home, I fiddled with the lights and discovered they were not all plugged in properly. So it works~score one for me!
I bought one of these storage bags for each of our artificial trees so they stay dust-free while in storage. Because we store our artificial trees in the attic, we disassemble the trees inside, carry the pieces up to the attic individually and then put them in the storage bags and zip them up.
We have a really large, lighted wreath we put in the center of the large window in our great room.
This wreath is so large that we store it in the attic as well. We hang it on a nail so it maintains its shape, then cover it with plastic. For smaller wreaths I use these round wreath storage bags, also available on Amazon.
For bulky and larger items like garland and my Christmas Village, I use these large plastic bins on wheels. I label each box with its contents using duct tape and a permanent marker. That way if the contents of the bin changes from year to year, it’s easy to peel off the old tape and make a new label. I put a label on the top of the bin and on the side so it’s easy to identify the contents when they are on the shelves. I bought my bins at Lowe’s several years ago and like the fact that they are red and green for Christmas! And they stack nicely, too.
Well, all of my Christmas decorations are safely stored away for another year! It feels great starting the new year with a clean house and a clean slate! My husband and I are off to play golf and then going to a friend’s house tonight to ring in the New Year with some of our favorite folks! Happy New Year my friends! God bless you all and see you next year! xoxo Dell
