Keep Christmas Storage Organized & Streamlined - Morganize with Me

The new toys are being played with, the wrapping paper has been recycled, and I can’t find any more Christmas cookies. It’s time to bring my house back to a simpler state. Or just without so much extra decor and well….so many pine needles. I don’t know about you, but I am always ready to breakdown all of the Christmas decorations and regain a more simplified flow to my home. I love all of the extra cheer, but after a month of all the “extra”, I am completely ready to bring things back to the before.

I shared my tips for keeping all of your other holiday storage organized and streamlined over here.

For all of the other holidays, I use these three bins for my seasonal decor. The green is for Spring (Valentines Day, Saint Patty’s Day, and Easter), the blue is for Summer (4th of July), and the black/orange is Fall (Halloween and Thanksgiving.) I have committed to myself that this is the maximum space I will use for holiday decorations (with the exception of Christmas and Halloween costumes.) For Christmas I have my storage limited to a total of FIVE bins.

So…how do you keep Christmas Storage – Organized and Streamlined?

Let me breakdown my process a little more and start with a little humor.
This will give you a taste of the craziness that goes on in my home.

First step – my hubby wanted to get rid of the tree…O.K.

But, then I found myself asking why is the yard garbage can in our kitchen???

Because, when you cut down a tree inside of your home, you must have somewhere to place all of the branches, are you kidding me? Is this normal??? Notice the electric saw in his hand…hilarious. (Sorry the lighting is not so great, I had to rush to get a picture as he was wasting no time, and for those of you who are asking – I will say, don’t try this at home!)

Second step – all the ornaments were placed in a large laundry basket and the bins were then brought in from the garage.

Each of my kids have a small tote to place their own ornaments in. So their task was to re-pack their individual tote. They found all of their own ornaments, wrapped them, and re-packed them. When they were done I did the same with the “Family” ornaments.

Third step – we I packed the big bins up. A quick run through my house and I added any decor that needed to make it’s way to storage ville.

Forth step – the bins made their way back to their home,
(usually the attic for us, but for right now the garage.)

These are the four red and green bins and the black bin to the right holds our fake tree, wreaths, and the outside lights. Normally these would have made their way back to our attic, but with a move happening in a while week…we are stacking in the garage.

Bye, bye Christmas 2012.

Hello New Year 2013!

*KISS – Holiday Storage Organization Tips:

-Block out a chunk of time to tackle all of the Christmas take down.

-Limit how much Christmas decor you will keep (read this as store and maintain.)

-Decide how many bins TOTAL you will keep year to year – this should remain a fixed number.

-Purge and clean out the bins each year, toss outdated, broken, or things you don’t like anymore.

-Commit to only adding/buying new items that you love and consider the one in – one out rule.

-Involve your kids to help with the clean up.

-Immediately put the bins away where you store them.

-Consider deep cleaning a little too…if time/energy allow.

-Order take out for dinner.