Organized Christmas Decorations

The time has come! Down come all the decorations we took so much time putting out in November and December. Do you put everything away all in one day? Spread it out over several days? Or leave some “winter” items out until the weather warms in the https://www.hrcpalmsprings.org/slot-gacor-hari-ini-pragmatic-play/? I usually leave out a few items, my smaller flocked tree in our bedroom is one for sure, and usually some twinkle lights in the kitchen or living room. But I find after the holidays I don’t feel the “magic” that seems to be there in November and December, so most of the time I wouldn’t remember to plug in the tree or turn on the twinkle lights. So this year I went cold turkey and put everything away.

I love Christmas and holidays and decorating for all of them, but I find myself ready for a fresh start and clean house after Boxing Day. I usually don’t take down the decor until December 31st or January 1st or 2nd though. More out of laziness and just enjoying having “nothing” to do, for at least a few days. This year I had to work over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so I feel a little bit cheated out of missing out on things over my 2 favourite days of the Slot Gacor Hari Ini. But I got to spend a few days and had some sleepovers with my Brother and his wife their dog and my 5 1/2 month old nephew that I got to meet for the first time ( they live away) . That more than makes up for having to have worked over the holidays. It always seems to go by so fast regardless! What are some things you’re grateful for? And some of your traditions?

I spent the first day if the new decade, de-Christmas-ing the whole house. I even decluttered a bit. 😲 if you read my first post of the New Year, one of my resolutions for this year is also to not overthink things and try to spend less time worrying about trivial things, leaving more precious brain space for things that are truly important. This is hard for me because I am an overthinker! Case in point: Last year I started to organize and purge my Christmas decorations when it was time to put them away. When I am in the midst of doing anything I need to devote my full attention to it, if it’s organizing, I like to stare at the space and all it’s contents for what seems like hours before I make any real progress! haha. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of organizing in the hopes of saving time. It’s (I’m)a work in progress. haha

In the hopes that I can learn from my own mistakes and maybe help someone else organize something in their own home, I’m going to share my most recently organized space, the basement Christmas decoration storage area. Now, in all honesty, I started this last year, (the overthinking part comes in here) haha, I had hoped to have it ready to share a few days earlier than today, but when I started to put away all the decorations, my 80smusiclyrics decided that this was the year he was going to build me some storage shelves in the basement!! What?! Praise the high heavens! I’ve been hearing this for 19 years, so when he actually went down there with the measuring tape and a DRILL I knew he meant business and this would be the year!! haha

It took him part of an evening to put them up and then I spent a few hours a day over the next 2 days to put everything where I wanted and label everything.

Before I get ahead of myself I’ll start back to last year, (January 2019) and how I started the whole process:

Take everything out of the bins this is so you have an idea of how much you have of a particular item(s) so they can be put in the proper sized storage, also so that you can easily see items that you either never use anymore, or that no longer fit in with the way you decorate for the holidays. I kept the sentimental items, (even though I don’t always put all of them out for Christmas), I still enjoy looking at them when I open the boxes every year. I had two piles, one with the items I was going to give to friends/family who I thought would use or enjoy them and one pile to donate to thrift stores.

Wash all the bins (my basement gets really dusty) and arrange by size this way I could see what items were best suited for which bins. A few times I did have to re-arrange and move things to a larger bin.

Group similar colored/themed items in each bin I did it this way because this just happens to be the way I decorate. I rarely ever put the same thing in the same place from year to year, but when I’m looking for items it’s usually based on a particular color. Before you place items in storage containers think of how you decorate your own home and come up with a solution that works best for you and your home (this is the part where I would stand and stare blankly at all the items) haha . Do you decorate by room? Or color? Or another way?

Now this is the part of the story where I started to lose steam. Haha, so if you think I’m a super organized person who’s house is always clean….just think of that episode of Friends where Monica has the secret closet 😉 It’s the one where everything falls out when the door is opened and no one is ever allowed to see in it. Anyway… the basement stayed in a very disorganized state for 11 months, haha. Not sure how my husband puts up with me sometimes. 😉

Fast forward to 2020…..

When I took down all this years décor, I took it all to the basement first, then placed into the proper bins. I feel like that would be quicker than carrying one bin at a time upstairs and then filling it. How do you de-Christmas?

Label Label Label I had a labeler but it broke part way through my labeling process last year (that’s also about the time I lost steam) so this year I used my computer to finish, and printed out a list of items that were in each bin, so I wouldn’t have to open each bin in order to see what was in it. I used packing tape to make sure they adhered well to the plastic.

When I had everything in what I thought was the proper bins, I tried to arrange them in the best way to fit on the shelves, and the items I usually use first I tried to put in the easiest access areas. The shelves are two bins deep, so the ones in the back are harder to see the list of items in them. But so much neater and easier than stacked 3 high on the floor in the corner of the basement.

It was time consuming, but feels so good now that It’s all finished. I even organized and labeled 3 other bins that I have, one with old/sentimental items and an Easter and Fall/Halloween bin and purged some items that I haven’t used in years. I have 2 canvas type tree bags, one has the 7 foot flocked tree in it and the other has 2 smaller potted trees. I still need to purchase a wreath storage bag, I had one wreath that I couldn’t fit in a bin.

My hope is that this makes next years decorating and un-decorating much quicker, and the basement (at least this half) haha, looks organized.

I hope this was at least a little helpful and inspired you to accomplish something you’ve been putting off.

Let me know how you organize your space by tagging me on facebook or Instagram or posting below. 🙂 And if you want to receive email notifications of new posts, be sure to sign up at the bottom of this page. Thanks so much for stopping by!