After the holidays are over, there’s an inevitable mess caused by gifts, wrapping paper, and Christmas decorations. If you have houseguests such as family members, the additional clutter and trash exacerbates the problem. How can you dig yourself out of the clutter? How can you transition away from the holidays? How should you determine what to do about holiday storage? At Safeguard Self Storage, we’ve had experience with this. Here are some tips that we’ve learned.
Organize, Organize, Organize
There are an infinite amount of holiday life hacks and Christmas storage ideas floating around the internet, but nothing beats creating an old-fashioned organizing strategy and checklist. If you’ve got one of those, you’re well on your way to banishing the mess from your home.
Make a List and Label Your Boxes
When your Christmas or holiday decorations are up, it’s easy to see where your stuff is and just how much space it occupies. Take this time to make yourself your own personalized holiday storage list. Any list will help, even if it’s just a few scribbles on a page. A detailed list, however, won’t just help you now. It will also help in the future as you take your holiday decorations out year after year. If possible, include the following details:
- Item categories
- Quantity of decorations
- Item attributes (fragile, flammable, sturdy, etc.)
- Room placement
Once you have this list, whether it’s in a spreadsheet on your computer or a notebook, you can use it to label your boxes as accurately as possible. Don’t be afraid to buy new boxes if you think it will help you. They can always be reused later on.
Take Special Care for Special Items
Some holiday items, like Christmas linens, figurines, candy tins, and the like are relatively straightforward to store. Others are not. You’ll want to pay special attention to these and buy appropriate padding or protection.
How to Store Your Artificial Christmas Tree
Your Christmas tree is most likely your largest individual item to store. While it’s easier said than done to put it back in the box it came in, an outside-the-box idea—literally—is to get a large roll of plastic wrap and shrink wrap your tree. You can even do so with the ornaments and lights still on the tree, making your unpacking next year easy as Christmas pie.
How to Wrap Christmas Tree Lights for Storage
The hardest thing to put away are holiday lights because of their extreme propensity for tying themselves into an impressive bunch of complicated knots. There are a few Christmas storage ideas that prevent this. One of the simplest solutions is to cut out a small square of cardboard and wrap each string of lights around their own square. That prevents lights from tangling with each other, and it also helps you understand more visually how many strings of lights you have.
How to Store Your Ornaments
Ornaments can be easily broken or damaged, so it’s important you have ornament storage that works. One option is to buy a purpose-built ornament holder, which does a great job in keeping ornaments secure and is easy to transport. If you’re more interested in a DIY solution, egg cartons and cardboard drink containers are your friend for small and large round ornaments, respectively.
How Self Storage Can Help After the Holidays
Even the best Christmas storage ideas only help so much, because you still have to find a way to stow them away until the next year. Putting them in your basement takes up valuable space you could otherwise utilize for items that you might need throughout the year. Storing them in your garage prevents you from parking there, which you might regret during the dog days of summer or the coldest winter nights.
That’s why self storage is an ideal option for holiday storage. By putting your holiday decorations in self storage, you’ll be able to keep your home clean and uncluttered and store your items in a purpose-built space rather than stuffing it anywhere you can. Safeguard Self Storage also offers the following features:
- Heated and cooled units
- Packing supplies on site
- Flexible access hours
- Drive-in loading areas
- Digital video recording
Uncluttering your home can result in multiple psychological and physical health benefits, such as increased confidence, increased energy, lowered anxiety, and more. Self storage can help you do that.
Safeguard Your Items with Holiday Storage
When the holidays are over, and you’ve finally figured out how to wrap Christmas tree lights for storage, Safeguard Self Storage can help you. With dozens of locations across Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, we’ve got a location near you to help you through the post-holiday blues. Don’t be overwhelmed with holiday items filling your home. Contact us and reserve a unit today!