The holidays are a great time to decorate your home with festive trees, decorations, and lights. But when the holidays are over, it can be challenging to pack all of your festive decorations safely away so that they don’t get lost or damaged during the rest of the year. Using these tips will help you keep your holiday decorations safe and organized.
Wrapping Decorations
Try to save all of the original packaging for your decorations, and repackage them each year. If you don’t have a decoration’s or ornament’s original packaging, wrap it up in tissue paper or bubble wrap, and store it in a sturdy box. Real Simple also suggests using partitioned wine or liquor boxes to store your decorations. You can utilize egg cartons for small ornaments. Just be sure to pad the boxes or cartons with tissue paper or bubble wrap so that your ornaments and decorations don’t break.
Packing Food-Based Decorations
If you have children, grandchildren, nieces, or nephews, you might have some food-based decorations, such as dough ornaments or macaroni crafts to store. Place food-based ornaments into a resealable sandwich or freezer bag, and place the bag into a cookie tin to protect the decorations from humidity and keep rodents out.
Storing Decorations
Storing your holiday decorations in a storage unit allows you to keep them safe and organized without taking up extra space in your home or garage. Make sure you label exactly what each box contains so that they are easy to find from year to year. Put the heaviest boxes on the bottom and the lightest boxes on top so that fragile items stay safe.
Storing Lights
Whenever you get a new strand of lights, label the cord with where you purchased the strand, how many bulbs the strand contains, and the type of bulbs the strand has. This way, you’ll know where you can get replacement bulbs when they stop working or fade.
You can use coffee canisters to store your lights. Cut a slit in the top of a coffee canister, and stick the receptacle part of the light strand into the slit. Wrap the strand of lights around the canister. You can store extra bulbs as well as extension cords inside the canister. Before you unroll the lights the next year, plug the strand in to ensure it’s working. Remember to store your lights in a dark place so that they don’t fade. Purples, greens, and blues fade more easily than yellows and reds do.
Color-Code Your Boxes
Color-coding your boxes of decorations will make them easier to find. For instance, you can use bins with orange lids for Halloween decorations, bins with green or red lids for Christmas decorations, and bins with yellow lids for Easter decor.
It’s fun decorating your home with festive decorations for the holidays. Using these tips will help you keep your decorations safe and organized.
