Organize Holiday Decorations

Happy New Year!

Organize Holiday Decorations by Reducing, Sorting, Categorizing and then efficiently storing your Holiday Decorations. Think how wonderful it will be to decorate next year!

January has been designated "Get Organized Month" by the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

What does this mean for you? Well, if you are here, perhaps one way of starting is to organize holiday decorations!

Yes, it is inevitable but the decorations must eventually come down. This year will be different however...

Organize Holiday Decorations using this quick-and-easy method to help you reduce your decoration inventory, organize the "keepers" and store them properly. Next year's decorating will be soooo nice!

You will take down, sort, organize, store and label all "keeper decorations." No more Holiday Decoration Chaos! Just stick with it!

A big job with bigger payoffs-you guessed it - More Time To Enjoy Future Holiday Seasons!

Planning With A Vision = Organizing Success

Storing Decorations

Whether you like the plastic red/green totes, clear containers or cardboard boxes, it's CONTAINING and LABELING your decorations that is important.

It's a bit tricky to decide how many totes/boxes you will need ahead of time because you will (hopefully) be reducing your decoration inventory. But try to stock up on some of these throughout the year as best as you can.

When you Organize Holiday Decorations, it's a very simple process but it will take a season or two to get things reduced to the essentials.

Choose a room to work on this project, preferably one you won't need for several days or weeks, depending on how much time you have to organize your decorations.

Put ALL Holiday Decorations in One Room/Area

Locate EVERY decoration you have, whether it's still up from the Holidays or in the "black hole" in the basement. Comb through each and every room, and check outside for lights and yard decorations too. Put it all in one room.

By gathering ALL your decorations in one spot you get a real visual of just how much you have. It can be quite a powerful sight! Is that you saying..."Wow-where did we get all of this stuff??"

Time To Pre-Sort!

Start at the door and move clockwise around the room. Sort your decorations into boxes/containers in categories such as... tree ornaments, lights, table decorations, wall decor, outside decorations, etc.

Sort

When you are done pre-sorting, choose one box and empty it. Go through each item while asking yourself if you really love and want to keep it or could you part with it. Yep, the tried and true "Keep/Toss" method!

Please don't be concerned if you don't seem to be "tossing" anything! Holiday decorations often have high emotional value attached. You are trying to organize holiday decorations, not get rid of anything special.

However, after doing this for a few years, you may find that there are lots of items that you have received over the years that you may not really want to use anymore. With this process you will soon reduce your decorations to "the most special."

Tree Ornaments

Tree Ornaments can be stored in a variety of ways. You can return them to their original boxes if you have them. You can wrap them individually in tissue, or even buy totes specifically designed for ornaments. (These totes are fine except often do not allow space for storing larger ornaments).

For very small ornaments, you can use egg cartons! Just fill the twelve slots, place tissue on top and close! Cardboard or styrofoam...both protect quite well.

Whichever way you choose to store your ornaments, be sure to clearly label the container so you know what is in it at a glance.

Lights

Some of us have an aversion to lights due to many years of detangling and bulb testing! Those days are thankfully behind us and you have probably seen a vast array of light options.

Whatever type of lights you use, store them so that you can take them out of the box next year, test them and hang them. How? It's simple.

I have been organizing client's Holiday decorations for several years and have found the best way to store lights are by strand, loosely gathered up and put in small plastic grocery bags! I kid you not--this works beautifully!

Next year, you will take them out of the plastic bags and they will literally fall out untangled! After a quick test, they are ready to string. Try it!

Next, put all the lights in one container or a box designed for storing lights, label and move on to the next category.

Organize Table Decorations

Table Decorations (a.k.a. Holiday knick-knacks) will need to be wrapped in tissue paper or packaging or small boxes. These usually require several containers because they consume lots of space.

After sorting and packing, put your table decorations in containers, label and continue with the next category.

Organize Holiday Decorations Summary

**Pre-sort all of your decorations into categories

**Sort decorations using Keep/Toss Method

**Pack decorations into containers

**LABEL, LABEL, LABEL

**Store in one area for next year

**Bring "Give Away" items to charity

Next year your Holiday decorating will be so easy!

But don't stop there! Use this same process every year to keep your inventory from getting overwhelming.

After two or three Holiday seasons, you will have simplifed your decorating dramatically and find that you DO have more time to spend with family and friends.

Happy New Year!

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