Easy Organization Techniques for Holiday Decor

Most families enjoy decorating their home and yard for the various holidays throughout the year. However, it can often be difficult to keep holiday decor organized, easily accessible and yet out of the way throughout the year when it's not being used. If your basement, attic or garage is stuffed to the gills with messy and disorganized boxes, bags and bins of holiday decorating supplies, here are some easy organizational tips you can try.

Decide on an Organizational Strategy

Depending on the kinds of holiday decor you use, there can be multiple organizational strategies that might work well. In many cases, organizing decor by holiday or season works well. However, if you normally decorate a particular area of your home for every holiday, it might make sense to keep all of those decorations in one place. For example, if you change your fabric yard flag according to the seasons and holidays, keeping all the various flags in one container makes a lot of sense.

When organizing your decor according to the holiday or season, evaluating your decorations should be the first step. After all, it won't do any good to plan a storage strategy involving small plastic bins if you have a lot of oversized holiday decorations or fragile door wreaths. Take an inventory of your decorating materials, making a list of them according to holiday or season. As you make your list, make note of any specialized storage needs for the items, such as if they are fragile or if they should not be exposed to heat. Once you've got a complete list of what you need to store, it will be much easier to decide on an organizational strategy.

Versatile Plastic Bins and Boxes

Plastic bins and boxes have traditionally been a popular way of storing holiday decorations. They are easy to stack, waterproof, and quite durable. Choosing a different color of bin or box for each holiday can make it easier for you to find the decorations you need. For example, you might choose a red bin for Christmas decor, a pink bin for Valentine's Day, an orange bin for Halloween, and a blue bin for patriotic holidays.

When buying your plastic bins or boxes, pay attention to how easy and efficiently they stack. If you plan to store all your holiday decor in one area, such as on a large shelf in the garage, choosing the same size of bins or boxes can make it easier to stack them efficiently.

Creative Storage Solutions

Although bins and boxes work well for a wide variety of decorating items, there are always going to be those items that need a more specialized storage solution. For example, large or fragile wreaths might not lend themselves well to being stored in a box or bin. For these items, it's usually necessary to get a bit more creative. For example, you could hang fragile wreaths on wall hooks in the garage after first placing them in plastic trash bags to keep them clean and safe. A plastic "magnetic" photo album can work well when organizing plastic "window cling" decorations. A notebook or binder filled with plastic page protectors can also be used to keep paper decorations or plastic "window cling" decorations safe, easily accessible and well organized.