Avoid These 7 Mistakes When Storing Christmas Decorations

Experts caution that storing Christmas decorations improperly can decrease their lifespan. Our article can teach you what to do instead.

Properly storing Christmas decorations is crucial to their longevity, and we often make significant mistakes without even realizing it.

Professional home organizers stress that when it comes to storing holiday decorations, simply placing them back in their original boxes is not enough. If you want your items to last, you need to store them correctly in the appropriate places within your home.

Here are the seven most common mistakes made when storing holiday decorations that you should avoid:

Storing items where they will be crushed

Ashley Murphy, co-founder and CEO of NEAT Method, asserts that failure to decorate your home with Christmas wreaths and decorations will make the holidays incomplete. That's why it's vital to store them carefully and prevent them from getting crushed next year. Murphy offers these tips:

• Carefully package wreaths and ornaments individually

• Arrange them neatly on the rack without stacking or crushing

• Consider using rigid wreath storage boxes if you have limited shelf space

• Storing fragile items with tissue paper

Christmas decorations are frequently fragile, which makes storing them safely in boxes for extended periods challenging. Bundle them together with tissue paper to keep everything in one container is a common solution. However, according to Amelie Saint-Jacques, a professional organizer and founder of Amelie Organizes, this is the last thing we should be doing. She recommends hard-sided compartmented boxes that you can buy from places like Amazon.

Not using any filler

Marissa Hagmeyer, co-founder and COO of NEAT Method, suggests that in addition to avoiding using tissue paper, you should also avoid any padding that will keep decorations safe:

• Choose storage boxes with divided compartments

• Prevent slipping and spilling

• Individually wrap fragile items with bubble wrap, fabric, or wrapping paper

• Fill the box with padding to prevent anything from moving inside

• Wrapping the lights into a ball

According to professional organizers Gemma Abraham and Hayley Harrison, storing and removing holiday lights each year, which are often the focal point of our holiday decorations, is one of the most challenging parts of holiday decorating. They suggest wrapping the lights using a kitchen roll or hanger to keep them knot-free and help identify bad bulbs before hanging them on the tree next year.

Leaving batteries in the decoration

Brenda Scott, professional home stager and founder of Tidy My Space, warns that whether you're dealing with individual strands of indoor Christmas lights or new moving holiday ornaments, batteries should always be removed before storing decorations away for next year. She advises removing batteries and storing them separately in a ziplock bag or wherever other batteries are kept in the home.

Not making post-Christmas arrangements before deciding what to keep for next year

It's crucial to make post-Christmas arrangements before deciding what to keep for next year when packing away your Christmas decorations. To keep your storage space more organized, donate, recycle, or throw away pieces you didn't display this year or things you don't like about your home.

Not storing decorations in the right places

When storing Christmas decorations, it's essential to store them in the right places and in the right way in your home. Professional home organizers recommend doing more than just putting them back in their original boxes if you want your belongings to last a long time.