The holiday season is always my favorite time of the year—I love all the glitter and lights and garlands. But the house always feels a little extra boring once I take all that down.

My usual Christmas storage is basically a giant tub with all the items thrown in more or less, but since I added a little more to my Christmas stash this year, I thought it would be a good time to get a little more organized with my decorations.

Here are some easy tips to make packing (and then unpacking!) your holiday decor a breeze!

Related: 3 Ways to Store Bottle Brush Trees

How to Store Ornaments:

For items like ornaments, use a segmented storage option where there are lots of little compartments to keep your ornaments separate and safe during storage.

Standard size ornaments can go in a container like this and this size is great for larger ornaments. You can also put more than one smaller ornament into a segment if they will fit—just make sure to not put two breakable ones in together unless they are both wrapped in paper or bubble wrap to protect them.

If you already have boxes you want to use, you can buy the cardboard dividers and go from there! Don’t forget you can move the dividers to whichever slots you like to make your compartments bigger or smaller for your needs.

Keep Everything Organized With Labels:

I really can’t say enough for labeling! I’ve used this label maker for my kitchen, bathroom, office, and storage room. It’s so helpful to have a clear label on boxes, containers, or tubs so I can easily find what I’m looking for without digging around.

Get one for this project, but you’ll use it all around the house (I use it for photo books and scrapbooking, too!).

Use Wreath and Garland Bags:

I always felt bad for my wreaths in storage as they tend to get smashed into a container that wasn’t really big enough for them, and they would come out kind of oval at the beginning of the season.

A wreath bag like this will keep them round, and you can store your garlands in there as well! I put my wreath in first, coiled some larger garlands around the outside edge, and then filled the middle with super lightweight tinsel garlands from the tree.

Be sure to add this to the top shelf of your Christmas storage so it won’t get smashed and they will look as nice next December as the day you packed them away!

Open Storage Options:

While the segmented containers and shape-specific bags are super helpful with storage, you also really want to have some basic boxes!

I have a growing collection of porcelain tea light houses (one of my favorite things to decorate with), so having a sturdy box like this was perfect to hold them all once they were protected with a little bubble wrap.

You can even use a larger box with removable trays and storage pockets.

Put Items Back in The Original Packaging:

OK, this one takes a little forethought, but one of the best ways to pack items is to repack them in the packaging they came in!

Put lights back in their boxes, store ornaments in their original containers, put garlands back in their boxes, and then put them all in a large tub together.

This is especially helpful for storing artificial trees, so make sure to save those boxes to pack them back into at the end of December!

The original packaging is usually no bigger than it has to be to fit the item, and relatively sturdy to withstand being shipped to and moved around the store, so you get the perfect storage container all for free!

Use Clear Storage Bags and Bins:

I saved a bunch of clear packaging bags that other items came shipped in (similar to these) and they were great for storing soft garlands (or any other non-fragile decor).

Clear boxes are also perfect for storage so you can easily see what’s in them (and you can use them year after year).

How to Store Your Tree:

I know I said that saving the original box for the tree is the best route to go for storage, but in case you didn’t think of that (and that box has been recycled loooong ago), you can use a tree bag to hold your tree instead!

The nice thing about the tree bag is that you can probably fit more than one tree in it since they tend to be roomy, so you can add your main tree and the two little ones that flank your front door as well.

You don’t even have to take your tree apart for this bag!

Color Coordinate Your Storage:

This is an optional suggestion, but if you can color coordinate your storage you will get 1,000 bonus organization points from the Organization Fairy!!

Not really, but it will look kind of amazing all together and make it really easy to find all your holiday decor. You could get all your items from the same brand to achieve that, or just pick a color you like.

So there you go! Lots of ways to keep your holiday decor nice and organized. They even make storage bags for wrapping paper, a storage box for lights, and boxes that protect figurines.

Tip: Take a picture of each box as you unpack them at the beginning of the season so you can easily reference what goes where when it comes time to take it all down.

Happy organizing and here’s to waiting for next holiday season! xo. Laura