The Best Ways To Store Your Holiday Decor

Who else has a love/hate relationship with Christmas decorations? They certainly add to the ambiance that can only be found this special time of year. However, by the time all the celebrating is over and the tinsel, ornaments, trees, and lights are taken down we know how daunting it can be to even consider putting everything away in a neat, orderly fashion.

How often do we just want to toss all the decorations into a large storage container and call it a day?! Seems like a quick and easy solution — everything’s at least contained to a bin and out of the way. Right? But, then a year later you open it up only to find a huge mess that you have to sort out. Strands of lights are balled up and tangled. Ornaments broken. Tinsel and glitter fly everywhere as you pull the clump of decorations out of the plastic bin. Now, regret sets in and you wish you had just taken a little extra time to organize.

This year with the help of The Container Store we’ve found some incredible products that will make it easy to avoid the biggest holiday storage headaches.

First things first — the center of attention during the holiday season, the Christmas tree. If you prefer to use a fake tree you have to have a way to store it 11 months out of the year. This Christmas Tree Storage Bag is ideal for keeping your tree in great condition. It holds up to a 9-ft. tree, the zippered closure keeps dust out, and the handles make it easy to move your tree from storage to where you’ll have it on display in your home. Oh, and the inside is puncture-resistant, so you don’t have to worry about tree branches poking a hole through the bag!

Ornaments are certainly the most fragile decorations to deal with. How is it that at least one always seems to break each year? Luckily, the The Container Store’s new holiday organization collection features ornament storage boxes that can safely hold up to 100 ornaments. They aren’t only pretty, they’re so functional and a complete upgrade from the old storage bins we were using. The boxes are lightweight, durable, and the handles make them so much easier to carry than lugging down heavy plastic totes from the attic. And the clear front panel makes it extremely easy to see exactly what’s in the box, so you don’t have to waste time guessing.

We love the look of the Red Farmhouse Ornament Storage Box, but there are clear ornament boxes if that’s more your style.

Tip: If you want to take even more precautions to protect your delicate ornaments you can use natural excelsior to pack around each item for a custom fit.

For larger decorations like nutcrackers we like to use Keepsake Storage Boxes. They are also made out of the same durable fabric as the ornament boxes and are a great way to safely store your most treasured items.

If you’re like us then you absolutely dread detangling Christmas lights. How do they even get so knotted up? So you can imagine how excited — and relieved — we were to find a product that saves us the hassle of detangling light strands for hours. The TreeKeeper Install n' Store Light Storage Box has completely solved our lighting nightmares. The box has three reels that easily wrap up Christmas lights into a neat bundle that keeps them from ever getting tangled. Each reel can store up to 120' of mini lights, 75' of classic C7 bulbs or up to 150' of extension cords. It’s so easy to use and also handy for storing garland.

With a little planning and organization, you can ensure your holiday decorations – and the investment you’ve made in them – are protected for years to come while making it easier to find them the following year. For more holiday organization tips check out our post on 5 Simples Ways To Organize Your Wrapping Supplies and How To Get Your Kitchen Holiday-Ready.

Happy holidays!  

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5 Simple Ways To Organize Your Wrapping Supplies

Ready, or not, the holidays are quickly approaching and there are plenty of things to worry about without having to worry about keeping all of your gift wrapping supplies and accessories in order. With that in mind — and the help of The Container Store — we’ve put together five simple tips to help organize all your wrapping supplies and make your holiday season a little bit easier. 

1. Get all your supplies together in one area.

Make sure you have your wrapping paper, tape, scissors, and anything else you think you might need to wrap your gifts all in one space. We like using The Container Store’s Elfa Mesh Gift Wrap Cart to keep our supplies neatly organized and easy to find. (Here it is in white.) You can store the cart in your closet year-round and then pull it out whenever you need it. It conveniently holds everything you might need in one place so you don’t have to run around the house searching for something — well, as long as your family members don’t steal your pair of scissors or tape and never return them to the cart. The wheels make it especially easy to move from place to place, so you can roll it out in front of the TV and get a glass of wine and knock out your wrapping out all at once.  You can use the cart’s top surface to wrap and the drawers are ideal for holding everything from gift bags and tissue paper to smaller items like bows and gift tags.

2. Invest in good supplies.

We’re all about working smarter not harder, so when we find items that make doing something much more efficient we’re all about it. There are several items we use from The Container Store that make the whole wrapping process a whole lot easier:

This hands-free tape dispenser has become a favorite of ours. It keeps both hands free for wrapping, while also keeping the tape from getting lost under a pile of tissue paper. Plus, it’s only $4.99!

The Helix Paper Cutter & Folder is another favorite that’s also under $5. Not only can you use it to cut your wrapping paper more smoothly, but the cutter also has a side that you can use to help flatten your paper while you’re folding for a nice clean, smooth edge. And, if you feel like adding a little extra cheer to your packages with ribbons you can wrap your ribbon around the cutter to curl it.

And of course, we mentioned the Elfa Mesh Gift Wrap Cart above.

3. Bags, bags, bags.

We realize everyone doesn’t love spending hours wrapping gifts. Luckily, using gift bags instead of paper can easily solve that problem. We always have neutral bags on hand because they can be used for any occasion and fun, brightly colored tissue paper or bows can make a plain bag more festive. 

4. Do not use old bags or paper.

We know how easy it is to hang on to those old gift bags and wrapping paper, but go ahead and toss them and replenish with new wrapping supplies.  The Container Store has a ton of gift wrap options and accessories for every style. We’re big fans of their high-quality wrapping paper.

5. Keep spare gifts around.

We always like to keep a few spare gifts in our wrapping cart. You never know when you’re going to be invited to a party and need something to take the hostess. They also come in really handy when you’ve accidentally forgotten a birthday or special occasion and don’t have time to run to the store. Just be sure not to buy too many gifts, because you’ll have to store all of them. You’ll also want to keep all the gifts in one designated area, so they aren’t all over the place and are easy to find right when you need them. 

We hope these tips will help your holiday season go a little more smoothly and if you run out of wrapping supplies head to the The Container Store where you’ll find everything you need to get organized before hosting for the holidays.

 Head over to our Container Store Ambassador page to see all the supplies we used today.

For tips on ways to get your house holiday-ready read our post on getting your kitchen ready before all the guests arrive.

Thank you to The Container Store for sponsoring this post. All photos and opinions are ours.  We may earn a commission when you use one of our links to make a purchase.

Easy Ways To Organize Your Linen Closet

When it comes to organizing the home, linen closets can often be overlooked — until you see a perfectly styled picture on Pinterest that you want to emulate, or, until you have last-minute guests arriving, which leaves you scrambling to make sure everything is in order and that you have enough clean towels and toiletries available.  

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to take a ton of effort to get a linen closet well-organized. Here are five simple tips to help you get started:

1. Go through all of your sheets and only keep one extra set of sheets for each bed. There’s really no reason to have more than that. Having a bunch of extra sets just creates clutter.

2. Once you’ve decided on what to keep, label each set of sheets by size to make it easy to differentiate between them. Labeling helps keep you from having to pull out all your neatly folded sheets every time you need to find a certain set.

3. Keep your sheets in a basket. That way your linen closet can still look polished even if you don’t know how to fold a fitted sheet — or don’t want to. We love using these baskets as well as these from The Container Store for our sheets. You can also use these labels on each basket to categorize by size.

Hyacinth baskets

4. We recommend using all white sheets and towels, because they’re easy to bleach if they get dirty. Plus, they’re easier to replace.

5. Go through your linen closet on a regular basis to toss old/worn out towels and sheets, then replace them as soon as you can, so you don’t forget. You’ll also want to check to make sure you have enough toiletries for guests to use and that items are easy to find.

Click here tips on how to organize your kitchen and follow us on Instagram for daily organizing inspo.

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