How to Pack Your Christmas Decorations for Long-Term Storage

Published: December 08, 2020

When you get around to packing away your holiday decorations for the season, don’t just throw everything up in the attic haphazardly! Try some of these organizing tricks to keep your ornaments protected and organized for easy access next year.

Clear plastic bags are your friend

Almost everyone has a few decorations they love that don’t store easily. Strangely shaped figures or fragile porcelain pieces are nerve-wracking to pack away. Believe it or not, packing peanuts inside a plastic bag can do wonders to safeguard fragile items. Make sure that there is ample filler material AND a good amount of air in the bag, as both of these will serve as effective insulation against falls and impacts.

Shrinkwrap your artificial tree

Artificial trees are a super convenient and long-lasting holiday decoration option, but they can be tricky to store. Trees are not exactly conducive to being packed or stored in a cabinet, after all. Luckily you can shrink wrap artificial trees, bringing them down to roughly the size of a rolled-up carpet. If you find yourself short on space, this trick can be a lifesaver.

Use plastic cups to store ornaments

This one is a bit of a DIY project, but it’s extremely useful. You can create cubbies out of plastic cups glued to a panel of cardboard or plastic, and store your ornaments individually in the cups. Make multiple panels of ornament cubbies and you can stack them up for storage in bins or on a shelf in your storage space. Now your ornaments are protected, organized, and easy to access for next year.

Store garlands in water bottles

Garlands are beautiful, but when stored they tangle and snag on themselves like no other decoration. Believe it or not, simply feeding your garlands into a regular plastic disposable water bottles is a great way to keep them curled and stored without tangles. Plus, you can often fit multiple garlands in a single bottle!

Wrap your lights!

When you wrap your light strings up, don’t just wrap them around your arm and call it a day. Instead, take a strip of cardboard as your wrapping base. This will result in your lights staying tightly coiled while in storage and prevent them from tangling with other light strands. Additionally, the cardboard acts as a handy place to write labels for your lights. Organization galore!

At UNITS, our patented storage containers and unparalleled customer service can accommodate all your moving and storage needs. Find your local UNITS center or call (855) 981-8648 to get started!