How to Organize & Store Your Holiday Decor

Unfortunately, the holidays are over as quickly as they come, and after the excitement and cheer have passed, there’s always a big task looming—organizing and putting away holiday decorations.

This year, follow this 4-step guide to organize your holiday decorations and make next year much easier! With some planning, you can set yourself up for annual decorating success.

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Gather Your Supplies

When you’re armed and ready to organize, you’re more likely to finish with a job well done! Grab your supplies before you begin taking down your holiday decorations.

• Boxes
• Sticky Notes/Notepad & Pen
• Permanent Marker
• Containers (Don’t buy anything new yet!)
• Label Maker (If you have one)

Now, let’s dive in!

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Declutter Holiday Decor as You Go

Considering all your freshly used decor, decide how much holiday decor you want to keep for next year.

Following our suggestions to organize your holiday decorations, ask yourself if you truly love an item. Does it bring enough cheer to justify storing it for a year? Or is it functional enough to store for 365 days?

If so, great! We’ll be sorting the things you’re keeping in the next stage. If not, grab one of your empty boxes and write DONATE in a big permanent marker across the side. Collect donation items as you go.

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Sorting Holiday Decor

When sorting your holiday decorations, use boxes to group them into categories like DONATE, TRASH (anything broken), and KEEP.

Here are a couple of options for organizing the KEEP category.

Organizing Based on Location

Now that you’ve decluttered your holiday decorations, it’s time to sort them into categories based on where you use them around your home. This will make things so much easier for next year because you’ll have everything grouped based on where it belongs.

Organizing Based on Category

You may prefer to organize your holiday decorations by category instead. This means putting all the lights together, all the greenery together, etc. If this feels right to you, then go for it! Remember to label things by location as you put them away so you’ll know where they go when you pull them out next year.

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Storing Holiday Decor

“Fit your container to your items rather than your items to the container!”

What do we mean? The most common mistake professional organizers see is people buying all their storage containers before assessing how much they have.

After you’ve sorted your holiday decorations into categories, it’s time to see what types of containers you need. That’s why we say to fit your container to your items — otherwise, you may be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And we all know how that ends!

We love to reuse containers you already have, so we suggest you shop your home first. Collect the available containers and see which ones work for your different categories.

Clear containers are our favorite because you can see what’s inside. However, cardboard boxes work as a budget-friendly option — clearly label the box on the top and at least one side.

Label the containers once you’ve contained your holiday decorations so you can easily find them next year! Choose a location in your home to keep all the containers together, and store them with the labels facing out for quick reference.

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Final Thoughts

Remember, organizing after the holidays is not only about putting things away but it’s also an opportunity to start the new year with a tidy and organized space. Take your time, involve family members if possible, and turn the process into a positive and productive experience so you can feel great in your home.

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If you’re overwhelmed just reading this post, remember that we offer post-holiday decluttering and organizing services. We can even do it all for you! Contact us to learn how it works.