Are you guys as sad as me?! I can’t believe Christmas is over…
I even decorated before Halloween this year and still, there is never enough time.
Now that Christmas is officially over, it’s time to take down the Christmas clutter, but when do you take it down?
Do you take it down the day Christmas is over?
Do you wait until after the New Year?
Or keep it up throughout the winter?
We break it up into three decluttering stages. We take down the red immediately after Christmas, and then take down the rest of the Christmas themed decor after New Years, but keeping greenery and winter themed decor.
Today we’re going to walk you through what to keep up vs. pack up and how to pack up for a seamless and happy decorating day the following year.
Buy Clear Bins
In our house, as soon as New Year’s is over, it’s time to pack up most everything. Besides some greenery and a few winter themed items, we pack the rest up.
Our number one rule is to get clear bins. It doesn’t matter how well you organize and label, something will always pop up throughout the year that you’ll want to find. I do this now for all storage, whether it’s holiday decor or baby clothes. I used to want solid colored bins for a cleaner look in our shop, but now that we’ve switched over to clear bins, it’s been a game changer.
Use Hangers for Storage
Hangers are another game changer when it comes to Christmas storage hacks because they can be used for so many things. Using hangers makes it so easy to put lights away so that they’re not all tangled when you take them out next year.
You can also keep your gift wrapping ribbon on a hanger.
Or you can even use them to hang your wreaths.
Got an old garment bag laying around? That works perfectly for all your wrapping paper! They all can sit up vertically and hang nicely.
Hanger Storage Hacking Ideas:
- Lights
- Ribbons
- Wreaths
- Wrapping paper
Recycle Cartons
If you’re a glass beer drinker, using the box them came in to organize your Christmas decorations are pretty slick! For the smaller ornaments, your old egg container.
Dividers keep your ornaments from breaking, but if you don’t have any dividers, plastic cups work great too!
Remove the Red
The first thing we do is remove all the red once Christmas is over. We remove all the red the day after Christmas on the Christmas tree, greenery, mantels, and shelves. We take down all the decorations, but leave the greenery with lights for New Year’s. Then once New Years is over is when we take down the rest of our Christmas decor, except for the real greenery.
Then once New Year’s is over, we take down the tree and the rest of the sparkles, and simply just leave the subtle touches of greenery.
Keep the Greenery Throughout the Winter
We leave the real greenery up throughout the winter and we do a combination of both real and fake greenery during the holidays. We’d do all real throughout our home, but let’s be honest, that is expensive!
This is the look we keep throughout the winter months.
Once New Year’s is over, we pack up the fake greenery but leave the real as long as it’ll last (without our little monsters destroying it).
During the holidays for the tables, shelves, and mantles, I do the real thing. For the railings, we do fake greenery. The real deal also dries up nicely, so if you use it as part of a table landscape, it’ll dry perfectly to last throughout those last few winter months.
