Christmastime is here! It’s a time of great joy and celebration, but not without its hurdles — specifically, you’ve probably had to take a grueling expedition through your storage space to unearth the long-lost Christmas decorations that have been buried deep.
It’s a yearly ritual for many — Christmas comes and goes, and once all the decorations are put back in their place, they’re buried, covered, and blocked by other junk in storage that will be more likely to come out during the rest of the year. This makes the packing — and unpacking — process to be a real pain.
That’s why it’s time to start thinking of Christmas storage solutions! At Spartan Junk Removal, we’ve helped all kinds of people with their junk, storage, and organization, and we’ve accumulated all kinds of great ideas over the years. Here are some ways to make your Christmas storage much easier to work with:
Keep Each Holiday’s Storage Separate
Most people who like to indulge in yearly festivities have accrued a non-negligible amount of holiday decorations. Most holidays aren’t too bad — for example, most people don’t have chests overflowing with St. Patrick’s Day memorabilia or fourth of July stuff. But between the smaller holidays, and the big ones like Halloween and Christmas, you probably have a lot of holiday junk.
One way to make it easier on yourself is to separate holidays, instead of keeping all your stuff together. The reason for this is that, once the designated holiday hits, you usually find yourself moving mountains of boxes, bins, and containers to get to the decorations you want. One holiday is replaced by the other, and it’s always agonizing to move so many boxes.
If you keep each holiday isolated, you won’t have to go through as much junk to get the decorations you want. If there’s any pro tip to start with, it’s this one!
Organize Your Christmas Lights
Anyone who’s ever owned Christmas lights knows of the sorcery that happens in storage throughout the year — how Christmas lights inexplicably seem to tangle themselves together into a Gordian Knot without you ever touching them. This phenomenon may seem unavoidable — but there are, in fact, ways to prevent it.
- Zip Ties and Velcro: One elegant solution is to wind up your lights into little circle-shaped bundles, and then bind the cords together, ensuring that they can’t become untangled. The easiest way to do this is with velcro cord straps, but zip ties will also do the trick. Binding the cords makes lights easy to store, and also safer from danger, as entanglement can lead to broken light strands.
- Wind-Up Organizers: If you want an even more airtight solution, invest in some wind-up cord organizers. These are nifty little devices that are made expressly for Christmas lights, and they will help to contain the mess.
Have a Special Container for Your Ornaments
The next step is ornaments. These are one of the most painful types of decorations to store — they’re hardly ever consistent in size, shape, material, or fragility, so there’s not really a uniform way to store all of them. That is, unless, you invest in a special container made especially for them!
There are all kinds of ornament organizers you can find online, and whichever one you choose, it’ll help to keep your ornaments safe and sound.
But organizers also serve an ergonomic purpose — it keeps all of them in a singular, geometric space that is easily packable inside larger bins or containers. This avoids the logistical problems of packing ornaments — where you might waste storage bins filling bins to an incomplete level, or piling stuff on top of them which could break or shatter them.
And, of course, it’s never a bad time to consider junk removal for your ornaments. As time goes on, tastes change, and you might find yourself wanting to get rid of some of your inventory.
Keep Your Fake Tree Somewhere Accessible
If you’re one of those dedicated folks who swore long ago to never use a fake tree, you can go ahead and skip this one. But for everyone else, it’s productive to think of the best ways to store a Christmas tree.
If you just have a tiny little fake tree, it’s not so much of an issue. But if it’s larger in size, it’s an exercise in frustration digging it up every year. Here are some ways to make things easier:
One way to prevent storage woes is to not keep heavy or awkward items above or below the main level — that requires an extra trip up or downstairs, which is just no fun at all. If you have no good storage spots on the main level, the garage can be a good choice — as long as it’s not already too cluttered!
Get Rid of the Excess
The last way to really make your storage more manageable is to ask yourself, “how much of this do I actually use?”
At Spartan Junk Removal, our general rule of thumb is that decorations shouldn’t be kept around if they haven’t been used in at least three years. This is totally up to you, but letting go of things that you don’t ever touch can be a liberating feeling, when you see how much more space you’re left with.
The best way to trim down your holiday decorations is to call a junk removal company. If you’re in Baltimore, Laurel, Hanover, or any of the surrounding regions in Maryland, Spartan Junk Removal is here to help. We provide junk removal services, garage storage solutions, and more. Contact us today to change your Christmas decoration storage for the better!