Christmas Take Down:
How Packing Purposefully Now Will Save You Time Next Year
If you are anything like me, you get itching about getting all those Christmas decorations away as soon as December 25th is over. This, of course, is because I’m such a “Martha.” I like to have things neat and tidy—it is a little too much clutter for me. I do, however, wait and start the Christmas take down the day after the feast of Epiphany. Because it is such a daunting task, some of you may be content to keep your Christmas tree and lights up all year. I think we all feel so overwhelmed after the festivities of the season that just thinking about putting all of this stuff away is exhausting. Sure, putting up the Christmas tree is fun, but who likes to take it down? And usually all those elves who helped to put it up, have gone back to the North Pole leaving Mom with most of the undecorating.
I’m going to suggest that how we undecorate, pack, and store the Christmas decorations this year will make next year’s decorating for Christmas, as well as next year’s undecorating, packing and storing much, much easier.
So muster up your last holiday pizzazz and follow some of these organizational tips for storing Christmas decorations:
1) Have all your Christmas bins a similar color and kind and make sure you have enough. I’m not suggesting that you go and buy all new bins this year, but having plastic bins in a specific color (ours are red and green, more or less) can help you to easily find your decorations in your storage. If you collect just a couple of bins every year, you can do this without having to spend a lot of money all at one time.
2) Store all these Christmas bins together. You may not be able to do this, but if you have the room in your attic or other storage area, keep all of these bins in one spot. This will help you not to have to look for that stray box of lights. Ours occupy a very specific area of our attic. I also number them all so that I make sure that I get all of them out when they are needed.
3) Plan on decorating a similar way next year. If you like how your home is decorated this year, the easiest way to decorate next year is to simply do the same thing. No one else will really notice that it is the same. And actually, your family who may notice will really like the tradition of always putting the Christmas tree in this corner and that singing snowman in that corner and the nativity there, etc. Go ahead and indicate on the bin where you put these items. I write where things go on index cards and just tape them to the bin that has those items in it.
4) Purge! Do you have decorations in boxes and bins that you did not use this year? Realistically ask yourself if you plan on using these in the future. If you haven’t used them for the last couple of years, you probably won’t use them again. It’s time to get rid of them. The exception I would make to this rule would be heirloom-type objects. But as I always say, if they are just sitting around in boxes, why have them? Can you figure out a way to use and display them? If you are saving them for a future day, make sure they are truly valuable and store them in their own special bin.
5) Store decorations in bins designated by room(s). This is very easy to do no matter if you have tons of decorations or just a few. If you are a minimalist with very few decorations, your bin may have an “all downstairs interior decorations” label. If you go overboard with your decor, it may be 10 bins all with the label “living room decorations.” Can you see how easy it will be to decorate next year? Just bring down the bin(s) and set them in their designated room and put the elves to work. We do the same thing for our outside decorations. We have 3 bins that have the label “Outside Decorations.” As I already mentioned, also write its contents the bin.
6) Store other “collections” in their own bins. These will also have a label of what room you will display them. For example, I have 3 Christmas tree bins that go in our family room. One is for the ornaments. Another has the garland, angel, and tree skirt. The last has the lights and a few special ornaments. The labels on these bins say “Christmas Tree, Family Room, “ and a description of what’s inside. If you had one of those Christmas villages, you’d want those in their own bin. Our Crèche, for example, is in it’s own bin. It says, "Creche, Stockings, Family Room."
7) Use Stockings to pad breakables. Since our Crèche and stockings are in the same room, it works out great to use the stockings as special packing for our nativity pieces. I place one or two in each stocking. Christmas dishtowels and bath towels can also be used as packing for breakable Christmas dishes and knickknacks.
8) Have easy access to the bins that you may need before the others. I delay my Christmas decorating until about a week before Christmas. I do however use some Advent decorations and activities from the beginning of Advent like my Jesse Tree, Advent calendar, Advent wreath, crèche, and St. Nicholas statues, etc. I store all of these in an Advent bin. I make sure when all of the bins go into the attic that the Advent bin is not buried in the middle of them.
9) Have a separate bin for wrapping paper, Christmas gift bags, Christmas tins, and other 
wrapping accessories. Since I take so long to get my Christmas decorations out, I find that I often need packaging for wrapping gifts way before this. Inevitably, I have a gift I need to take to a party or something for a teacher that I need to wrap. I also try to have all my presents for my own family wrapped early on so that it is done and peeking at gifts is nearly impossible. For this reason, I have a “Gifting” bin with gift-wrap, tins, baskets, and bags in it that comes out with the Advent bin. Another benefit of having this gift-wrapping bin is that after Christmas, wrapping paper can go for 75% off. I buy next year’s supply at this deep discount, store it in here, and I’m ready to wrap when next year comes around. There is no more guessing if I have wrapping paper left from last year. I can just check this bin and stock it as needed.
As you can see, the first time you set up this storage system, it will take a little time and work. After this initial set-up, unpacking and packing becomes a piece of cake. If you decide to add more décor or switch it up, just add more bins and/or re-label.
Here is our attic Christmas section. It is not one that you'd see in a magazine, but it does the job. Some bins have been labeled and re-labeled several times. The white label is the most recent. Sure it would be nice if they were all red and the same size, but these work fine.