Organizing After Christmas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Family, friends, yummy food, all of it is fabulous until you have to clean it up. Keeping your holiday tools organized though will make years to come that much more enjoyable because you will know what you have, what you need, and most importantly where it all is come time to break out your holiday decorations. Take a look at our 10 ways Grandma says it is best to get organized after the holidays!

10 Tips and Tricks for Organizing After Christmas

1. Sort Before You Stow
Streamline holiday decorating by sorting through tattered and non-working Christmas decorations before you put them away for the year. This makes it so that next year you have everything you want and do not have to spend precious decorating time picking through decorations that are outdated or broken.

2. Take Notes
With the holidays fresh in your mind, take notes of the decorations that may need replacing for next year. Half of the tree lights are burnt out or constantly flickering? Write it down so when there are after Christmas sales, you can prepare for next holiday season as you de-clutter and put things into storage from this year.

3. Keep Your Ornaments Safe
You have spent years collecting fabulous baubles for the Christmas tree only to find one or two broken every year when you pull them out of storage. To minimize the broken ornaments, use egg crates to hold small balls in larger storage bins. For larger ornaments plastic cups or tomato containers work great!

4. Wrap Your Lights
Everyone expects tons of newspapers and store ads to be delivered in the weeks before Christmas. This year instead of tossing them in the recycle bin, save them for when you are taking down the Christmas tree. Fold a small stack of newspaper in half and wrap your Christmas lights around it to store. The flexibility of the newspaper allows you to store MORE lights in LESS space.

5. If It Fits, Put It In A Bin
Storage totes come in so many shapes and sizes, which means, they can be used for so many different things. One of my favorites is the stack and carry one by Sterilite. This is perfect for storing loose pieces of ribbon, gift tags and scissors and tape. It basically acts as your gift-wrapping command center.

6. Label, Label, Label
You never realize how many decorations you have until you have to put them all away, right? To preserve your sanity next December, use your go to plastic storage bins as usual, but instead of just stacking them in the basement or attic, label them. Label every single bin with as much information as you can, this way you know exactly what you are looking at without the hassle of digging through the bin just to find the baby Jesus for the nativity scene.

7. Pack Your Wrapping Paper
It is so easy to crinkle that awesome Christmas paper you got 40% off during the off-season. A quick fix? Well, there are two ways you can go about this. If you have ample under the bed space, use a rolling, under the bed box. This will keep your paper safe from liquid and crafty little hands. Or, if your storage space is more limited, buy a cheap, tall garbage can from the store. You can stand your rolls up in there and voila, instant wrapping paper storage system!

8. Preserve What You Can
Large statement items like blow up lawn décor and holiday wreaths can be costly, making it all the more important to properly store them. Keep the box for your artificial tree if that is your tree of choice. Use large, heavy-duty garbage bags as homes for wreaths and blowups. No matter what you have to store though, have a designated place for it where there is plenty of room to keep the items as dry and least squished as possible.

9. Sort Through Cards
If you’re like me, each year you send out tons of holiday cards and always feel like you are missing someone. Save the cards you got this year in a large quart sized plastic bag and put it in one of your bins with other decorations or ornaments. Next year as you begin to unpack your holiday items, you will find your premade Christmas card list. No forgetting anyone this year!

10. If it Stays Still, Clean It
Fine china; wash it. The “good silverware”; polish it. Chances are these things are heirlooms and it would be very hard to replace them. Taking good care of things like fine china and silver prolongs their life span and gives you a chance to pack them away carefully. Aside from serving ware, places like bathrooms and kitchens can get dirtier than usual during the holidays. Be sure to give these high traffic areas a good scrub down so you can start the New Year on a clean note.

See how practical and easy these organizing tips are? Give them a try and see how much easier your holiday will be. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to download our free label template to aid in your storage labeling.