Tuesday, December 30, 2014

A Simple Way To Put Away Christmas

Most years, putting away Christmas decorations makes a huge mess...
We bring up all the plastic containers from the basement, take the lids off and proceed to take down the decorations from all over the house. 


This leads to a lot of running back and forth between rooms to the containers and decorations and pretty soon, there are 10-15 open, unorganized boxes everywhere. Of course, someone ALWAYS seems to drop by right in the middle of all this mess and it takes more than a day to do it, so this year I'm taking down Christmas a little differently. 

I brought everything to the dining room table and organized it by what box it goes into.

I put all the angels together, the stockings and pillow covers together, pinecones, etc. Here I have all the vignette decorations that will be stored in one box. Then, I bring a couple of boxes up at a time when, pack them up in an organized fashion and take them to the storage room.  

Taking down the Christmas decorations (not counting two trees) took me less time than it took for the washing machine to wash a load of laundry. Gotta love that!

lf someone happens to come over in the middle of all this, only the dining room table is cluttered. The rest of the house is de-Christmasfied and neat. I didn't have enough time to put it all away in one day, but we don't use this room on a daily basis anyway. 

I left our little tree decorated and will take that down New Years Day. 
I will leave up our nativity until Epiphany on January 6th. 



After all the decorations are put away, the containers will go on the shelves in the basement storage room. If you missed my "How To Store Your Stuff" post, you can see it HERE.

Are all your Christmas decorations taken down and put away?  If not, how long do you leave them up?

Happy New Year to all!!!

Pam

5 comments:

  1. Great idea! I've been staging on my dining table too and it helps a lot but I need to organize in groups which will help even more!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mine are all put away: in fact, last night I re-organized the boxes. We don't use/have that many decorations, and this year only had a small tree, so it's not too much of an ordeal! But, we have no attic or basement…so the challenge is to store everything in the one big closet upstairs. I actually did reorganize that too, last night, and in the process am giving away some clothes I didn't even know were there. Bonus!
    Happy New Year Pam and best wishes for 2015

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now that's a good idea! Thanks...ours are still up because we have family staying with us...but Friday the tree comes down, and next week everything else, after they leave. Then I can do what you did! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I use my tables and surfaces as well but it still looks like a pretty chaotic, disorganized mess while it's happening. It's so much quicker to take down the decorations than put them up and the house feels so clean and clutter free when I'm done. Ours are still up because we were in Europe over Christmas/New Year's and we're just celebrating now. I'm sure by next weekend, I'll be ready to take it all down!! Hope you had a great holiday!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Late to the party, but except for anything outside, I never even THINK about taking mine down before Twelfth Night (which is when I celebrate). If it snows in January, I allow myself a belated White Christmas (it usually only rains during Cincinnati Decembers).

    Only once the weather warms up am I truly ready to move on from Christmas decorations - I SO enjoy seeing them. (This year I'm considering hosting a "Christmas on Valentines Day" gathering, since I missed Christmas party season this year, thanks to an energy-depleting head cold that refused to let go).

    Pinning your system to my "Holiday Plans, Org & Storage", however - currently, I am the "before" to your "after." I never really understood the "put it all on a table" concept until you clearly stated the reason: organize by tub & don't bring them all up at the same time! Duh.

    xx,
    mgh
    (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie - ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
    - ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder -
    "It takes a village to educate a world!"

    ReplyDelete

Leave a comment and let me know you stopped by! If you are not on blogger, leave me your email or some other way of getting in touch with you in the comment. That way I can reply to your question or comment.