How to store Christmas Decorations

We’re all familiar with the dilemma by now. Every year, we’re expected to decorate our houses from top to bottom with enormous quantities of sparkly, glittery things. Let’s take look at how we might store all of those Christmas Decorations ready for next year.

Storing the tree

First, let’s deal with that pesky tree. The problem with Christmas trees is that they consume an inordinate amount of room when they’re not in use. Despite this, they don’t have much actual volume – most of the space is, well, empty. Fortunately an artificial tree is blessed with very flexible branches. Just get a few old belts (or some particularly sturdy cable ties) and you’ll be able to bind the thing up so that it can be crammed into the smallest of cupboard spaces.

Getting your priorities in order

You’ll need to take out some things sooner than you will others. If you’ve ever tried winding a reel of tinsel in between a Christmas tree that’s already festooned with baubles and lights, then you’ll know what we’re talking about. If you’d like to make things easier for yourself, then you can keep a ‘bare minimum’ box which can be unpacked first, containing just the essentials. That way you’ll be able to arrange the rest of the tree as you see fit, around a core of stuff that you know will look great.

Keeping everything tight

In order to protect your decorations against damage, it’s a good idea to give them as small a space as possible to move around in. This means that you’ll need packing material. Styrofoam is great and flexible; just stick your decorations in and be done with it. Bubble wrap is good for absorbing impact – but it’s more for long-hall shipping of delicate items, and will be an enormous amount of hassle to remove and apply again.

If you’re feeling especially clever, then you can put all of that discarded wrapping paper to good use. Just find yourself a shredder and feed the lot through. You’ve immediately created a pile of loose confetti, which can be used to shield your Christmas decorations against damage.

Label everything

Does the idea of rooting through ten boxes before you get to the required item appeal to you? If not, then you’ll want to clearly label everything you put away. If you’ve categorised your items as neatly as you should, then this will be straightforward – simply describe a box’s contents on the side, preferably with a market pen, and in block-capitals.

Throw away the things you don’t like

Every year, many of us come upon shiny things that we like the look of. But we can’t justify buying things we just don’t need. But why not? Whatever happened to ‘out with the old, in with the new?’

Now, we don’t want to be environmentally irresponsible. But then neither do we want to keep hold of things that we do not use. Take your unwanted items down to your local charity shop and be rid of them, and replace them with items that you really do want. You’ll be happier for it!

Storing the decorations

Now we come to the decorations themselves. Whilst it might be tempting to just cram them all into a cardboard box and be done with it, it’ll be far easier when you come to unpack if you store each decoration in its own container.

Garlands

Garlands are among the easiest things to store – after all, they’re just long strands of beads. Deborah Naves, of San Diego, came up with the idea of cramming them into an empty plastic bottle. That way there’ll be no need to untangle them when you come to unpack your decorations. Each 500ml plastic bottle is capable of holding at least two garlands.

Lights

Christmas lights are a little bit trickier. Unlike garlands, they’re quite capable of getting tangled up with themselves. You’ll therefore want to reel them around something, in order to prevent this from happening. Kim Christensen over at A Real-Life Housewife came up with the idea of wrapping them around pieces of cardboard – and this seems to us an eminently frugal suggestion – though you might wrap them around toilet rolls or empty Pringles cans. Next time you get your lights out, you’ll be able to do so easily and quickly.

Baubles     

Baubles are a relatively easy thing to store – just cram them into a space and they’ll fit inside relatively nicely. However, Katie over at Craptastic came up with the splendid idea of inserting some old doweling rod into a plastic container. This will allow you to hang baubles (and any other hang-able item) all year round.