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I know what you’re thinking — why are we talking about Christmas in February?! Generally speaking, I take the majority of our Christmas decor down the weekend of MLK Day. The girls like for me to leave them up as long as I can (Who am I kidding? I do, too!) and it’s a long weekend after the holidays are over, when I can take the time to purge and organize. I’m also a bit of a procrastinator, so with Polly as an excuse to relax and snuggle, I’ve only just finished the packing process this week. It’s not like our house was still decorated, I just hadn’t fully organized or put things away in the attic.
I mentioned on Instagram, back in December, that I was purging old decorations and trying only to keep what we loved and so many of you asked to see how we were storing everything. This isn’t so much a how to post, but more of a what we do post. We have a walk-in attic, above our kitchen, where all of our storage bins live. It’s currently open to the insulation, but we hope to panel it at some point, to make it a little cleaner and give us a little more space.
I had a ton of holiday decor that I wasn’t using, so I packed up all of the extras and carried them to a donation box after Christmas. I threw away trash and extra packaging, bought all new boxes, and pulled together a few supplies for labeling. Here’s how everything looks today!
Previously, our decor had been packed away in mismatched, opaque containers in various colors and sizes. You know how it is, you pick up a new container every time you need one and before you know it, nothing matches and you’ve relabeled the boxes a hundred times. Josh and I decided that we would swap out all storage containers in our home to a single size/brand and we wouldn’t add to our collection unless that exact box was in stock. We’ve been using these containers from Wal-Mart, but these are available on Amazon and have the exact same dimensions (we use the 64 quart size). The benefit to using one style is that they stack really well and I prefer clear bins, so that we can see what is inside. We donated all of the other boxes, so they didn’t go to waste!
I used to have everything packed with like items, but I found myself dragging boxes all over the house as I decorated. Now, I group items by the room they belong in (or tree, if we’re talking ornaments) and I don’t worry if the box isn’t stuffed full. I can have Josh pull the boxes out and take them to the right room and then I take over!
For ornaments, we trash all of the boxes (sorry, keepsake ornament people!). We have no plans to sell them, so the boxes don’t mean anything to us and they take up way too much space! We don’t even wrap individual ornaments, unless they are particularly delicate. I’ve found that layering ornaments with tissue paper and bubble wrap is more than sufficient for keeping things straight.
When I was using opaque storage bins, I had the boxes labeled with a sharpie marker on the outside of the box. As our tastes change and we rotate decor, I found myself marking through the labels and I hated the way it looked. This year, I made index card labels and taped them on the inside of the boxes. If they fall off, at least I’ll still be able to see them, and I never have to worry about when I need to change the contents of a box.
I tried to be as specific as possible on the labels — I included the room and as many descriptive words as necessary. I do not want to be digging through multiple boxes when looking for something specific!
In addition to the bins, we have one large Christmas Tree bag (I mentioned in my Amazon post that it’s not quite big enough, but we’re making it work for now), a soft zip up bag with our tree skirt, stockings, and garlands, and a big space bag with our seasonal pillows. The pillows won’t go in the attic because I’m worried about moisture, but vacuum packing them means they will fit on a closet shelf much easier.
My favorite thing I did was to use Lindsay’s tutorial (scroll to the bottom of her post) for storing Christmas cards and I love how they turned out! I only have cards from Ella’s first Christmas forward and I actually discovered during the process that I’m missing an entire year. I feel sure they are packed in another box from our move, so I’m hoping to find them in the next few weeks.
I know that not everyone has the benefit of an entire cabinet in the kitchen, devoted to Christmas, but that is what works best for us. I have my mom’s vintage Christmas dishes in the cabinet — there are twelve place settings and she jokes that they conveyed with the house. Ha! I also have seasonal glasses, napkins, and a few small decor pieces that I use in the kitchen. I usually decorate the kitchen first, so having these where I can put my hands on them right after Thanksgiving, makes the process much easier on me.
How do you pack away your Christmas decor?
