5 Smart Ways Professional Organizers Put Away Their Holiday Decorations

From busting out the boughs of holly to finessing your Douglas fir, there’s a lot that goes into making your home feel merry and bright for the holidays. But do you know what’s more difficult and tedious than setting up your holiday decor? Taking it all down. After all, removing your decor feels decidedly less jolly than putting everything up before the holiday magic begins.

Not only is it important to carefully pack everything to keep breakage to a minimum, but knowing where everything is will also make decorating next year a lot easier. But with so many lights and ornaments to pack, organizing everything can be a huge undertaking. If you’re looking for a place to start, we asked two professional organizers to share their best tips for tidying your seasonal decorations.

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1. Rework Your Gift Wrap

It’s not your imagination: Your Christmas decorations are just as delicate as they look. If you don’t wrap those fragile ornaments carefully, they can get crushed and cause some merry disappointment next year. According to Isabella Guajardo, professional organizer and owner of Bella Organizing in San Francisco, the solution might be hiding underneath your tree. “Save and reuse tissue paper from received gifts to wrap them for storage,” she recommends. Meanwhile, Stacy Chia of A Mindful Method in Seattle recommends cocooning your ornaments in bubble wrap or old, soft cloth.

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2. Buy Quality Bins

An organization system is only as good as the containers you buy. “Using old cardboard boxes or mismatched bins can lead to broken or damaged items,” Chia says. Instead, use water-proof plastic bins to protect your decor from all the elements. Additionally, Chia recommends keeping your bins as simple as possible. “Instead of color-coded bins, which add visual clutter, clear labels and designated zones for each holiday keep everything accessible and tidy,” she says. To easily identify the contents of each bin, Chia recommends dressing up each container with a QR code.

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3. Wind up Your Twinkly Lights

Anyone who has ever decorated for the holidays can tell you that detangling stands of twinkly lights can be a total nightmare. But instead of throwing them into your plastic bin and hoping for the best, Guajardo has a clever alternative. “Use cardboard paper towel tubes to wrap cords around before storing in a bin with only other string lights,” she says. How genius!

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4. Be Careful with Your Batteries

From light-up yard decor to a snow globe that plays a cheery song, it’s safe to say that a lot of your seasonal accessories run on batteries. However, Guajardo argues that not caring for battery-operated decor appropriately can cause you a major faux pas next year. “Always remove the batteries from holiday decorations before storing them,” she says. “It’s almost guaranteed that they will leak if you don’t remove the batteries.” As a general rule of thumb, Guajardo recommends placing the batteries in a pouch within the same bin for next year.

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5. Declutter and Donate

If storage space is available at a premium, you might want to recommend being extra careful about how many decorations you bring into your home. “The ultimate space-saver is simply having less stuff,” Chia says. “Investing in a decluttering session can help you identify what truly adds value to your life, making storage more manageable and your home more serene.” 

The next time you are removing holiday decorations, set aside any pieces that aren’t being used or no longer match your seasonal vibe. Who knows? These unused items might even be able to get a second home somewhere else. “Consider donating unused decorations to local charities,” Chia adds. “They can bring joy to someone else’s holiday season while freeing up your space.”

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