How to Un-Decorate for Christmas

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Decorating for Christmas is fun, but can feel stressful when thinking about putting it all away. Having a plan for taking down and storing your Christmas decorations will make it so much easier! I’m sharing a few of my favorite tips and tricks with you, to help make un-decorating for Christmas a more pleasant experience.

Collecting vintage Christmas decorations is one of my favorite things to do. I collect lots of things, including Shiny Brite ornaments, putz houses, mercury glass bead garlands, Santa mugs, anything plaid (think thermoses, scotch tape metal tins, and coolers), and everything in between.

The best part about collecting? Our home looks magical all decked out for Christmas! The worst part? Trying to find a way to store all the beautiful decorations! Not only that, but a lot of them are fragile (read: frageelay—name that movie!). Luckily, I haven’t had too many casualties, and when I do, it’s because I’m clumsy…not because of how I’ve stored the different pieces.

To start the Christmas un-decorating process, I corral all the decorations onto our kitchen counter and dining table. This includes all my bottle brush trees, small breakable figurines, Christmas art, and garlands. I do wait to put my Shiny Brite and other mercury glass ornaments away until last. I put take them off the tree directly and put them into their storage boxes.

[I have a few different kinds of storage boxes for my ornaments, but I did just buy four of these 12-Gallon Flip-Lid 60ct Ornament Storage Tubs, since my collection of vintage ornaments has grown. I’m not usually picky about the containers I use for storage, but these ornaments are irreplaceable, so I want to take care for them not to get broken.]

When I gather all the decorations on the counter and table, I try to group them together by what they are. My hope is that I have enough to fill a tote with all one kind of item to make labeling easy. If I have to mix items, I try to do it by selecting things that get displayed together.

I prefer clear containers because it makes things easier to spot, in case I’m looking for something specific, but being diligent about sorting by like items helps so much! Also, I make sure to label, label, label. I don’t have a Cricut or a fancy label maker or anything, so I either write the totes’ contents on extra wide masking tape or on scrap paper, using packing tape to secure it to the tote. It doesn’t matter how you label the containers, as long as you do it! It takes an extra step, when you’re excited to just get everything put away, but you will be so happy that you did it when it’s time to get things back out next year!

To make sure all my breakables stay in one piece in the totes, I use plastic grocery bags, small boxes, and Christmas linens (stockings, towels, tablecloths) to keep them safe. I also try to fill the totes up. It might sound counterintuitive to fill them, but when everything is snug and secure, instead of loose and able to move around, items will be much less likely to be broken!

In addition to using totes and boxes to store decorations, I also use the decorative items themselves! I have several vintage coolers that make perfect storage for items when they’re not being used. I can still use the coolers to decorate with even when they have decorations hidden away inside. Then, I only have the coolers taking up storage space, instead of additional totes and boxes. This saves me money too, since I don’t have to buy any new totes.

I also have several glass canisters with lids that I’ve bought new and at the thrift store. I try to pick them up secondhand whenever I can—I can usually grab them for at least half the price of new. Since I have so many, I tend to leave the vintage Christmas ornaments in them to be stored. The fewer times I have to handle the ornaments the better—I’m always fearful of breaking them! This 2 gallon glass canister with lid is the perfect size for filling with pretty Christmas ornaments! The best part about the canisters is that they’re versatile for lots of decorating purposes, so if you don’t store ornaments in them, you can use them for other things!

I get lots of comments on the birdcage filled with ornaments. It’s such a fun focal point and, since we have the space, I leave the ornaments in it and just store it away in the basement. Truthfully, this could be something left out all the time because it doesn’t scream “Christmas”!

There are lots of ways to store lights and garlands, but what has worked for us is to wind them up, using the hand to elbow technique, securing the ring with string or zip ties, and then storing individual strands in plastic grocery bags or ziplock bags. When we get everything out for the season, I just put the bags back in the totes to be used again.

Wreaths, whether for Christmas or other seasons, can take up a lot of storage space! I’ve also found that buying storage containers for them can be expensive and a lot of times they don’t always fit in them well. At our old house, I decided to use some extra wall space in an out of sight spot in the basement to hang wreaths when they weren’t being used. This method worked the best of anything I’d tried, plus I was more likely to actually use the wreaths I had because I could see them and easily access them. We used some long storage hooks like THESE so I could put a few wreaths on them, not just one. (These also worked well to hold our folding chairs!)

We haven’t installed the wall storage hooks in this house yet, so for now, I use large S-hooks in an extra closet in the basement to hang my wreaths from. They work just as well to keep the wreaths organized and easily accessible.

I leave the tree for last because I want to make sure I get all the ornaments from it and the loose ones that I’ve scattered around the house, all into the storage boxes with separators. I could use the original cardboard boxes that some of the ornaments came in, but I love those to decorate with and some of them are so fragile, I don’t want to break them down any further by taking the lids on and off.

I don’t normally wrap any of the ornaments, as long as I’m putting them into the totes that are specifically for ornaments that keep them apart with cardboard inserts. I try not to put multiple ornaments in a section, but have been known to do it if I run out of room. Really, the totes go straight down to our storage room and don’t move until the next year, so they probably would be ok to double up sometimes.

Also, good or bad, I do leave the hooks on from year to year. It makes take down so much easier, and then hanging them up the next year is a breeze! The tangled mess of hooks drives me nuts too, so this method helps with that.

Lastly, we get a real Christmas tree, so I don’t have any great storage tips for you, but there are lots of other uses for a real tree, once you’re done with it!

1. Add it to a local pond (with permission). Fish use love this as additional habitat!

2. Mulch it for your flower beds.

3. Compost it! We have THIS composting tumbler and love it! When broken down, the compost is so good for your flowers and garden.

4. Put the tree outside in the stand and let birds and animals use it as shelter for the rest of the season.

5. Cut the trunk into wooden coasters or use the pieces to make ornaments for next year.

6. Cut it up for firewood and to make fire starter kindling.

7. Burn it and add the ash to your garden. Wood ash is full of potassium and lime, so good for the soil.

Every year, un-decorating for Christmas gets a little bit easier. I tweak things here and there to make the process easier, including weeding out items that I haven’t used and that I don’t plan to decorate with in the future.

I would love to hear how you take your Christmas decorations down—if you have any amazing methods or items that you use for storage. I know we don’t all have the same amount of decorations or space for storage, so it’s always good to hear alternative ways of doing things!

If you’re feeling inspired by what I’ve shared today, let me know by sharing a picture of your Christmas decorations all stored away over in your Instagram stories and tag me when you do! You can find me on Instagram at @hilaryprall.