Tips for Putting Away Those Holiday Decorations

You’ve trimmed the tree and decked the halls and dressed your house in the best lights and yard blowups money can buy. The holidays came and went and you enjoyed every moment of your festive decorations and now it’s time to take them down. Where do you start and how do you get organized? The task of getting your house back to it’s pre-holiday environment can be an overwhelming one but help is on the way.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you have separate storage containers for the decorations from each area of your home. For me it was storage for interior decorations, tree decorations and exterior and yard decorations. Your storage can consist of storage bins for each area or even just plain old cardboard boxes. Whatever you choose, just make sure you designate separate containers for each area of the house. This will make it much easier to put things away and also easier to find them when it’s time to use them again next year.

Once you have your storage together, start with what’s easiest to put away. Wherever you have the least amount of work to do that’s where you should start. Getting this done first will give you a sense of accomplishment and make you more willing to keep going. For me it was taking down the exterior decorations since we didn’t put up many lights and yard dressings this year. For you it may be taking down your tree if you don’t have many ornaments on it or maybe a different area of your home. Once you get one area out of the way things pretty much keep rolling from there.

Another good point to remember is, if there is an area of your home that has a lot of decorations to deal with it’s okay to take a break and come back to it later. You don’t have to take them down all at once or even all in the same day. If you took more than one day putting them up, it’s definitely okay to do the same when taking them down. Taking breaks will alleviate the feeling of being stressed and overwhelmed.

Once you’ve gotten all of your decorations into their storage containers, find an area in your home to put the containers that is out of the way of your everyday activity. This might be a storage closet, garage or even a shed. This is important because you aren’t going to be using them for almost a whole year and you don’t want them lying around in your way for all that time.

When putting away those decorations the single most important advice would probably be to not get discouraged. Get organized, do what’s easiest first and take your time. These things will help you in accomplishing your task and your home will be back to it’s pre-holiday decor in no time.