KEEP IT TOGETHER
♦It's helpful to keep all of your Christmas tree ornaments and
decorations in their own ornament storage boxes. That means keep them
in a separate decorations or ornament storage box from other interior
or exterior Christmas ornaments and decor.
The reason for this is that decorating the Christmas tree is a project
in itself. If you have everything related to that project in one
section and/or in a separate Christmas storage box then you won't have
to dig around to find JUST your Christmas tree ornaments and
decorations.
WARNING: FRAGILE
♦Remove the most breakable and delicate ornaments and decorations from
your Christmas tree first. Either pack them away right then or
carefully set them aside to pack away later. You would do the latter
if for instance you want those particular holiday ornaments to go in
the storage box last or on top.
The reason that you want to take them off the tree first is simply so
you don't accidentally knock them off while you're removing other tree
decorations. Breakable ornaments would be ones made, for instance,
from glass. Delicate could mean holiday ornaments or decorations that
won't necessarily break easily but that might bend out of shape or get
crushed easily.
♦Be sure that you cushion individual fragile ornaments using bubble
wrap, a few layers of soft paper towels or heavy tissue, etc.
♦Or use a Christmas ornament storage box with dividers. Many stores
sell these customized boxes which are particularly good for standard
size Christmas ball ornaments, etc.
♦Try to put individual delicate ornaments back into their original
boxes with their original custom fitting Styrofoam inserts
(yes...easier said than done sometimes.).
NEXT: CATEGORIZE CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT STORAGE
♦Once you're done removing the breakable and delicate ornaments and
decorations from your tree, start removing and sorting remaining
ornaments by category. You can do this two ways.
1) One way is to circle the tree and collect all of one category at a
time. For instance, collect all the round Christmas ball-shaped
ornaments. Then collect the little material Santa clauses, snow men,
etc. Then take down the flat material stockings or flat cardboard
ornaments. And so forth.
2) The other way is to remove all ornaments from each section of the
tree at once BUT sort them ongoing into nearby piles of categories.
♦Once you have removed all of the ornaments and decorations from the
tree, you'll then pack these sorted piles of Christmas ornaments away
in your ornament storage boxes.
♦While undecorating the Christmas tree, keep your ornament storage
boxes all nearby and open. That way you can put some of the
decorations and ornaments directly into the boxes as appropriate.
♦Use a lot of smaller boxes and containers that fit into your larger
Christmas storage boxes. This method further protects your individual
ornaments from breaking or bending. Of course, it keeps them neatly
sorted and organized too.
But this way smaller, lightweight or different shaped ornaments don't
get crushed by their heavier, larger counterparts. Your holiday
ornaments and decorations don't slide around in one big storage bin
banging into each other(which can lead to breakage).
♦If you find that you have extra space in these smaller Christmas
ornament storage boxes, stuff some crumpled newspaper, shipping air
packets or even crumpled paper towels along the inside of the box. Now
everything will stay in place.
♦Label these smaller boxes. (Put a labelmaker on your Christmas list
if you don't already have one.)
ONE FINAL TIP
♦Don't seal and store any Christmas ornament storage box until you're
totally done undecorating your Christmas tree. Why? Because inevitably
you'll find an ornament or two hiding in the branches that you
overlooked and needs to go in box A or box B, etc. Wouldn't that be a
hassle if you'd sealed that ornament storage box, perhaps even put it
away already? |