ALT-1 How to Store Christmas Decorations
Storing Christmas decorations away for another year is very much like tyring to fit a square object into a round container. There never seems to be enough room for all of those Christmas decorations. You wonder if your Christmas decorations doubled themselves overnight, and how they managed to do that. You wonder, how did I fit all of those decorations in this small space?
Decorating your home every Christmas is the fun part, but putting all those decorations away in a major chore. Trying to squeeze them all into that round container is even more difficult. Especially when you live in a home that you call a shoebox, like we call our home.
Here are some time saving, storage tips for all those Christmas decorations:
MAKE ROOM
To make more storage room for those Christmas decorations you may have to thrown some old items out. All of our Christmas decorations go right under the stairs, in a walled in space, all very organized and arranged just so. You can do this too, with an extra closet, or attic space not being used. To be able to utilize the space under the stairs, I had to go through all the old clothing and items I was keeping and give them away and throw them out. I wanted to keep the kids old baby clothes forever. But with a 17 year at home, I knew it was time to finally get rid of his baby stuff.
GET RID OF IT
Every year, go through your Christmas decorations and give away some items. You can keep them in the family by giving them to your adult children, or a brother or sister. When you buy new Christmas decorations make sure that you get rid of some of the older decorations. That way, it will be easier to store the items, because you will less to store away. Consider giving away an older Christmas tree and buying a live tree every year. That way you won't have to store the Christmas tree every year.
SAVE ORIGINAL BOXES
Keep the original boxes that the Christmas decorations came in. Use those boxes for storing your items in. The boxes can be placed into a carton, a larger box, and storage containers. These boxes will protect your Christmas decorations such as all those breakable ornaments, from impending doom. Your Christmas tree box should be kept for the life of your tree. You can store the tree in that box along with the directions for putting up the tree. Even several strings of lights can be placed in the original tree box.
ORNAMENT STORAGE CONTAINERS
Ornaments need to have their own storage containers, so that they don't break. What we did one year was we bought a very inexpensive rectangular, ornament storage box. It is long, and almost flat, but large enough to store all of our ornaments in. It slides right under the bed, and hides away from all sources of breakage, and mold and mildew for the entire year until we need them again. The box holds hundreds of ornaments that we have collected over the years. And we have quite a collection! Many of our ornaments are heirloom, and have become a tradition for our family that tells a story of love, togetherness and family ties.
PLASTIC CONTAINERS
Purchase storage containers when they go on sale after Christmas to hold all your beautiful decorations. Make certain that the containers are plastic and strong enough to hold everything you own without items being broken or crushed. You may have to buy several plastic containers. You will want the containers to be plastic because they will hold up better than a cardboard box, in case of water damage, and placing the containers on top of each other. And they will also withstand mold and mildew better than cardboard boxes.
RECYCLING
Save the boxes presents came in and place ornaments, stockings, and small decorations in these. It's the ultimate way to save the planet by recycling. This way you won't be throwing them out, adding to the landfills, you will be re-using them. Then you can place these boxes in the storage containers, thus keeping your time honored traditions safe for another year. Reuse the tissue paper that come with many presents and wrap ornaments and other timeless Christmas decorations in the paper. Then you can place breakable and easily scratched or easily ruined ornaments in boxes.
Keep the boxes that the wreaths came in, and reuse them every year to store your beautiful wreaths in, also. Keep the spools that the ribbon comes on, and wrap the ribbon back on these cardboard spools. It works to protect them from harm, and the festive holiday ribbons retain their original shape and color. Keep the Christmas tree box to store the Christmas tree safely in for another year. Store the tinsel in gift boxes to retain their original shape.
Finding the best way to store your Christmas decorations will keep those decorations beautiful for many years to come. This way they won't get crushed, broken or ruined from mishandling and you will have them for many years to come.
