Storing your Christmas Décor

We have all experienced the frustration of spending hours untangling lights because we didn’t store them properly the year before and the disappointment of taking out your favourite set of baubles to find them smashed because they’ve been flung up into the loft and abandoned. Well, what if we told you there was a way to avoid all this extra stress at Christmas?

Storing your items correctly is the best way to avoid that sinking feeling as you hear the shards of glass smashing together and the cursing at the mess of tangled lights spread out on your living room floor.

Here are the best ways to store each Christmas item to ensure they are usable for next year

Baubles and Decorations

Don’t just dump them in a plastic bag or an old Celebrations tin, if you still have the tub/bag they were purchased in then these are usually set up so that you can store the items safely away again. However, if you don’t have the original packaging or you bought the items loose then the best way to store the items is in a specially designed storage chest or storage bag.

These items have several trays which are divided into several compartments big enough to store each bauble or decoration safely.

Plus, if you opt for a storage bag/chest with wheels and a long handle you can safely move the ornaments from the tree to your chosen storage location.

Christmas Lights

Christmas lights are the most frustrating part of decorating if you haven’t stored your lights away properly as you can often spend hours untangling them. To make sure you don’t have this problem next year you should follow these steps:

As you take the lights off the tree, lay them out on the floor in a zig zagging formation so you can ensure that the lights are not tangled to begin with. Then, hold the end of the lights between your thumb and forefinger and make an L shape with your arm and elbow. Loop the lights around your elbow and back to your forefinger, continue until all the lights are wrapped around your arm. Remove the lights from your arm and you should have a neat bunch of lights, wrap the lead cable and plug around the top section of the bunch and then place back in the original box packaging to keep secure in this shape.

If you do not have the original packaging, then a similar size box can be used or alternatively purchase a cable tidy to put the lights in and then place the lights in the cable tidy in a bag to keep free from dirt.

Christmas Tree

Getting your Christmas tree back into its original box is one of our least favourite things about Christmas. The way to do this properly takes plenty of care to bunch each section of branches back into a compact position like they were when they came out of the box and carefully place each section at just the right angle so that everything fits neatly. But by this stage most people are felling completely over Christmas and give up with the neat approach simply squashing everything in, which can damage the branches and lead to disappointment the next year.

So, a much better way to do this is a Christmas tree storage bag. These bags mean you have to do less squashing and will fit everything much more easily. Plus, a bag with handles is much easier to get up into the loft than an awkward-to-carry box.

Storing your Christmas items in these methods will make the job a lot less stressful and mean that all of your beloved Christmas decorations are kept dirt-free, damage-free and safe until next year.