Buying guide for best Christmas decoration storage
Storing Christmas decorations isn’t always easy. The ornaments don’t fit back in the packages they came in. Individual ornaments you’ve collected need special care. Wreaths and garlands are bulky. Christmas lights get tangled. And artificial trees don’t always go back into their box. Dedicated Christmas decoration storage is the solution to all these situations.
Christmas decoration storage is specially designed to hold ornaments, wreaths, lights, and artificial trees neatly and without damage. These boxes and bags have padding and compartments to fit all the different kinds of holiday décor you use each year. The storage containers are typically brightly colored, usually red, in keeping with the Christmas theme and, not coincidentally, making them more visible and easy to find in your garage or attic.
If your Christmas décor could be more organized, consider the types of decorations you need to store, their size and fragility, and where you want to store them. A good shopping guide and some recommendations can help you find just the right solution to keep your holiday treasures safe until next year.
How to buy the best Christmas decoration storage
Types of decorations
The types of Christmas decorations you have will determine the storage containers you need.
Artificial tree: Look into getting dedicated tree storage that fits a whole tree or a disassembled or folded tree without compressing or damaging it.
Ornaments: If you have many ornaments, from inexpensive sets to handmade heirlooms, you need a good Christmas ornament storage solution with plenty of padding and compartments to keep the items separate.
Wreaths and garlands: Both artificial boughs and those made of natural fibers like grapevines and twigs need a storage solution that protects them and maintains their shape.
Christmas lights: Holiday lights require storage that keeps the cords neat, the bulbs separate, and everything protected from damage.
Figurines: Nutcrackers, gnomes, reindeer, and nativity scenes need a lot of protective padding to keep them from getting chipped, abraded, or cracked.
Gift wrap: Rolls of wrapping paper, gift bags, and all sorts of ribbons and tags can be challenging to store without the right containers made for these items.
Capacity
Christmas decoration storage should provide enough capacity to hold your items, whether you have 100 ornaments, two strings of lights, or one artificial tree. Take inventory of what you need to store. A good size for ornament storage, for example, holds 60 to 100 medium to large ornaments.
Hard- or soft-sided storage
Christmas decoration storage comes in either hard-sided or soft-sided containers.
Hard-sided containers, such as plastic bins, maintain their shape and volume. Simple plastic bins are a versatile and affordable solution, but they offer less padding and interior organization than soft-sided storage.
Soft-sided containers are designed to fit specific types of holiday décor, such as ornaments, and they offer more padding to protect your items. The containers can be collapsed to save space when they aren’t in use. However, these containers can’t bear much, if any, weight on top of them, so they can’t go at the bottom of a stack of containers.
You can use empty egg cartons to hold small ornaments if you’re storing your decorations in boxes or bins that don’t have compartments or dividers.
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Features to look for in Christmas decoration storage
Compartments
Organization: This is a key feature of Christmas storage containers, especially when it comes to ornaments, lights, and other small items. Many of these containers have dividers or separators to keep the items apart.
Protection: Many Christmas decorations are fragile and prone to damage, from stripped needles off artificial trees to cracked ornaments to broken lights. Dedicated storage is designed to protect these items using padding and other shock-absorbing materials and by securing them in place to minimize jostling.
Waterproof
Decoration storage that is weather resistant or waterproof protects your items from moisture damage from a roof leak or basement flood, for example.
Portable and stackable
Having all your Christmas items packed together makes it much easier to move them around. Most of these storage containers have handles or straps to make filling, handling, transporting, and stacking them easier.
If floor space is at a premium, look for Christmas decoration bins and boxes that are strong enough to stack. Also, lids designed to hold other stacked containers in place can help keep the storage area safe and organized.
Labels
Some Christmas decoration storage containers have built-in label windows, so labels look neat and won’t fall off. If your preferred storage options don’t come with label windows, you can mark the boxes neatly using a label maker.
Color
Dedicated Christmas decoration storage tends to sport bright colors, usually red with accents of white or green to fit the holiday. These bright colors make the containers easy to see in your garage, basement, or attic.
DID YOU KNOW?
American dime-store magnate F. W. Woolworth began selling glass ornaments from Lauscha, Germany, in his stores in the late nineteenth century.
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How much does Christmas decoration storage cost?
Inexpensive
Christmas decoration storage options cost as little as $10 to $25 for individual containers, including simple, sturdy plastic bins with lids, as well as small ornament containers and wreath bags.
Mid-range
For more specialized options, look for containers that cost between $25 and $50. These include ornament storage solutions with dividers and compartments, padded wreath holders, tree boxes, gift-wrapping containers, and reels for string lights.
Expensive
Spend $50 to $150, and you can find impressively large ornament storage solutions with multiple racks, bins, or drawers, individualized compartments, and attractive styling.
Wreaths made of evergreens date from ancient Roman times and have been adopted by Christians to commemorate the season of Advent.
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Tips
- Use acid-free paper, tissue paper, and cardboard. Inexpensive cardboard and paper contain acids that over time leach out and can damage ornaments and other décor, particularly those made of paper or fabric. Look for “acid-free” or “archival” storage containers.
- Clean the decorations before storing them. After the festivities, clean off your ornaments and other items before packing them away. That way, they’ll be ready to go right out of the box next year. This is particularly important for items used outdoors, such as lights and wreaths.
- Sort through your decorations every year. Toss out anything that’s broken beyond repair and give away or sell items you no longer want or need. This will minimize the amount of space you need to dedicate to storage and make room for any new decorations you buy.
FAQ
Q. How do you wrap Christmas decorations for storage?
A. If your storage container doesn’t have padded compartments or inserts, use tissue paper, packing paper, or paper towels to wrap fragile ornaments and figurines. Avoid using newspaper, because the ink can rub off on the decorations; however, balled-up newspaper works well as filler. Cardboard tubes like those left over from gift wrap can be used to hold string lights.
Q. Is it okay to store Christmas decorations in the garage?
A. If they’re well packed in good storage containers, you can store your decorations in your garage. Just keep in mind the risk of damage from moisture, heat, fire, and light, all of which can damage or degrade these delicate items. Use storage options that protect your decorations from these and you can keep them in your garage.
Q. What if I have limited storage space?
A. Look for underutilized space in your home when storing your holiday decorations. You can find options that are shallow enough to slide under the bed or that hang in a utility closet. If the containers will be visible, choose attractive ones. Some wouldn’t look out of place on a bookshelf or beneath an end table.
