The holidays are a wonderful time, filled with lights, food, drinks, and fun. Decorations of all kinds brighten people’s homes, businesses, and city streets. It can be sad to see it all put away, especially when you have to do it yourself.
Other emotions might come to mind as well, such as where to put everything. As much fun as holiday decorations are to put up, what goes up must come down, and sometimes it can be hard to find a place for it. Said place needs have the space for the decorations, and, vitally, not need to be used for around nine or ten months out of the year. So just shoving everything in the linen closet isn’t the greatest of plans. There are ways to store accessories and décor, though, and while it might not be quite that easy, it can still make the task simpler.
The obvious place to store holiday stuff is the basement, for homeowners who have them, or the storage area, for apartment dwellers who have them. Both areas tend to be premium locations for storing stuff long term, so if you don’t have room for the holiday decorations, you should consider doing so. The storage room for apartments usually aren’t very big, but if all you have is an artificial tree, some decorations, and a enough ornaments and lights to do the job, it should fit.
Basements are a bit trickier. Their size makes them a bit daunting in where to put what where, especially if it’s actually used a lot. Under the stairs can be a good place depending on layout. If that won’t work, consider some solid wood cabinets for the job. The key is no matter how small or large the amount of holiday material, to keep it organized and compact so it can be easily taken out and placed back in storage. Easy access makes decorating more fun and, well, easier.
If a cabinet isn’t available, there are plenty of storage containers designed for holiday ornaments and decorations. A plastic storage tub with separators is the tried and true method for ornaments. Granted it needs a place to live, but having the decorations organized makes it easier to get them out and set them up every year. Taking them down might take some time, but everyone procrastinates on putting away their holiday décor anyway.
The tricky decoration to put away is probably garland, because it can shed like a dog in the summer. To keep strands of silver and gold from getting everywhere, consider storing garland separately in smaller plastic containers. Water bottles can be good for this, depending on the type of garland, but a small plastic tub can work just as well. This will help keep the garland contained and in good shape for the next year.
Another tricky decoration is lighting. Tangled holiday lights are a tale as old as the lights themselves. You can almost imagine Thomas Edison himself trying to untangle the previous year’s lights while lamenting Nikola Tesla. To avoid this hassle, you can either just buy knew lights every year, try and wrap them like when they came out of the box –good luck with that- or, you might consider wrapping them around spare pieces of cardboard. This is similar to how wires and cables are wrapped so they don’t get tangled. It’s fast, easy, and makes unrolling the lights each year a snap. Just make sure they’re still working before you set them up again.
Larger items, like artificial wreaths and trees, are best stored in out of the way areas. The problem is they can take up a lot of room. Placing wreaths in the back of a closet is one strategy, as long as you don’t forget where they are. Keeping them on top of a shelf in the basement or garage can work too. This is especially helpful if you can fit the artificial tree back in the box or bag it came in. if you’d rather not take the tree apart and back together every year, consider just shrink wrapping it and keeping it in a corner for ten months of the year.
The holidays are a wonderful time, some say even the most wonderful time of the year. The decorations and lights are beautiful and a lot of fun to set up, but what goes up must come down. Finding a place to store the decorations when they’re not in use and keeping them organized while they wait for their time to shine isn’t as hard people might think, it just takes dedicated space. Finding that space is often the tricky part, but with some planning and forethought, the holiday décor can be safely stored until it’s time once again the hang up the holly and start decorating the tree.
