19 Suggestions for How to Pack Up Your Christmas Decor

Packing up your Christmas decorations after the holidays isn’t nearly as fun as unpacking and decorating for the holidays. Here are 19 suggestions for how to pack up your Christmas decor and prepare your home for the new year.

Even as you are enjoying your Christmas decorations, It doesn’t hurt to have a plan for packing them away. I love to start a new year with a clean slate. That begins with a holiday decor-free home.

Before you can clean up and decorate your home for the coming seasons and months, you have to pack up all the Christmas decorations. Depending on how much you decorate your home (We always go overboard.), that can take a few days or a week.

Do you take down your Christmas decorations after Christmas? Before the New Year or do you wait until after New Years? I’ve been reading more and more people leaving their decorations up to Epiphany on January 6th.

This year, we are going to Atlanta to celebrate the holidays with family. We return home on the 30th, so I plan to wait until the day after New Year’s to start the packing up. (I may start gathering decorations on New Year’s Day, depending on how exciting the bowl games are.)

Sweet Shark estimates that we have 30 – 40 individual boxes, bins and containers for varying sizes and shapes of decorations. I’ll take his word for it.

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Our Packing System

Do you have a system for how to pack up your Christmas decor? I do have an order of attack that works well for us.

Over years of trial and error, we have learned the best and most efficient ways to pack up the Christmas decorations. This is the approximate order that we follow:

1. Bring in all the bins from the garage and distribute them throughout the house.
2. Gather all the smaller decorations, such as Santas, trees, stuffed figures, etc. and pack those. I place those on the dining room table and kitchen island.
3. Gather delicate items, such as ornaments on the tree, and carefully wrap them in tissue and/or bubble wrap.
4. Take down the wreaths and garland. Remove any ornaments and embellishments.
5. Pack the ornaments.
6. Remove all the strings of lights from the trees, wreaths, garlands and other decor.
7. Remove all the batteries and place them in a bag for proper disposal. (Check with your city guidelines.)
8. Place the wreaths in their wreath containers and the garland in plastic zippered bags.
9. Set aside any wreaths or garland to be used in winter decorating.
10. Pack the tabletop trees in their individual boxes.
11. Pack all the Christmas glasses and dishes in their boxes and place them in plastic bins. Use smaller bins because glassware/dishes can be very heavy.
12. Remove lights from the bushes/trees outside – Sweet Shark’s job!
13. Remove the Christmas bedding from our bed and wash the sheets and pillows.
14. Remove the inserts (to be reused throughout the year) from Christmas accent pillows. Shake out the throws and fold. If necessary, I wash them now.
15. Place all pillow covers, throws, Christmas dishtowels, and linens in bedding containers.
16. Make sure all containers are labeled.
17. Organize all the containers by size and shape.
18. Place the containers on shelves in your garage or attic.

Did I forget anything?

Do you find that there is always one thing that gets overlooked?

How to Pack Up Your Holiday Decorations: 19 Suggestions

Just like the order that we follow for packing our Christmas decorations, I have some tried and true suggestions for how to pack up your Christmas decor and get ready for next year.

1. Determine if you need more storage containers for things you will need to pack away until next year. If needed, purchase packing paper or bubble wrap for securely packing delicate ornaments or other fragile Christmas decorations.
2. Remove all the batteries from battery-operated lights or decorations. Place the old batteries in a sack and research how and where to properly dispose of them.
3. If any lights have gone kaput, don’t keep them in the hopes that they will miraculously work again next year. They won’t. Discard and make a note of how many you need to replace for next year.
4. I like to wrap each battery fairy light individually and then organize by them by color (either multi-colored or white). Place like colors/type of light in zip-lock bags before placing all the lights in a bin labeled “lights”. NOTE: We have so many fairy lights that I’ve started packing them in plastic shoe boxes by color. I like this size for a variety of small items. Then I put several into one larger bin.
5. Have garbage bags handy for the things you will be throwing away.
6. Have plastic gloves ready to protect your hands when removing ornaments from the Christmas tree and general packing.
7. When packing up your Christmas decorations, discard any that have broken parts, pieces missing or ones that just look old.
8. If some decorations need some super glue to be “good as new” fix them now before packing them.
9. Pack up and set aside decorations that are in good condition, but you no longer want. Donate them to schools, churches or women’s shelters. Your kids may want ones that were special to them.
10. Organize your ornaments and decorations by type or color. I’ve learned that as I pack up ornaments to organize them by color. All our silver bells and balls go into one bin. All our Mark Robert’s Elves take up two bins.
11. Remember to distribute the weight of your containers. Just because you can fill your containers, doesn’t mean that you should. Lifting heavy containers can be dangerous. Items like candles can be very heavy.
12. Use containers made specifically for wreaths. They have straps and handles that make them easy to hang while in storage.
13. If appropriate, repack items in the boxes they came in. We do this for wreaths, table-top trees, and candles.
14. Label every box and container, even if you can see what’s inside. I know digital systems are available, but I use a big black marker. I just find it the simplest method.
15. Discard old wrapping paper that has been reused since your kids were toddlers.
16. Remove the inserts from Christmas pillows to reuse throughout the year. I store our Christmas pillow covers, sheets, and throws in plastic blanket and duvet containers.
17. If you have bows that will need freshening for next year, take them apart now.
18. Use cardboard rolls from toilet paper or paper towels to roll and store ribbons to reuse next year.
19. After all the Christmas boxes are put away, give your home a good dusting and vacuuming. Have a Swiffer duster and polish, dust buster, broom and dust pan (I just bought this one.) and vacuum cleaner ready to remove the dust and debris left from all the decorations.

After all the Christmas decorations are packed away and the house has been dusted and tidied up, getting our home ready for the short winter months is the first task of the new year. We can now focus on adding winter decor accessories. 

Are you short on the supplies you need to pack up your holiday decorations? Here is a collection to help you.

I hope that you gained many ideas about how to pack up your Christmas decor for the following year. Did you learn some new suggestions for packing up your holiday decor? This is a great post to save for future years.

Want more Organization ideas? Here’s office organization ideas: Home Office Reorganization and Tips for an Office Decluttering.

Check out my Organization Board on Pinterest.