Oh my gosh, I hope you all survived the holidays! I feel like there is sooo much that goes into getting ready for the holidays and then it's over in five minutes. Seriously?!
We put up our tree and decorated the house right after Thanksgiving. I LOVE everything about holiday decorating, especially the warm, cozy glow the white lights provide for the month they are up. Who doesn't love to snuggle up with nothing but the holiday lights? It's truly my favorite time of year.
And then you add in all the holiday shopping and running around... I want to stab my eyes out. {I try to do as much of my shopping as I can online.}
Finally all the shopping is done, everything is wrapped and it's suddenly Christmas Eve. We have a tradition of spending the evening with my husband's family in the home his mom's family grew up in and his aunt & uncle now own. I love everything about that, too! Christmas morning my parents come up to watch our kids open gifts, have coffee and breakfast... And then it's a mad dash to get ready to go to the in-laws. We spend 10:30 am - 2:30 pm there before we travel onward to my brother's to spend the evening with my family. So much running around but so worth it to see our family.
...then just like that it's Christmas night and time to head home... and it's a damn blizzard! Literally. It was the craziest weather I have experienced in a LONG time and I'm a life long resident of WNY. There was one point when Ben was riding with his head out the window to tell me where to drive. Complete insanity. A drive that normally takes about 35 minutes took nearly 2 HOURS! Merry Freaking Christmas.
Anyways... enough about that. When I took our holiday decorations out in November, I was determined to re-organize what we were keeping when we put them away and to toss all the decorations we no longer use {there was plenty}. I'm happy to report that with the holidays behind us, I did just that!
Do yourself a favor & do the same! You'll thank yourself {and me} next November when we do this all over again. Promise. I finally broke down and bought ornament storage boxes. I admittedly use to wonder who on earth stores their ornaments that way but after doing so and being able to eliminate ornament boxes and the huge tote the were stored in, I know why you'd do it! It's a HUGE spacer saver and all neatly contained.
And the lights... we would wind them up neatly and place them in the ornament tote. That was until I purchased the Sterilite light storage box. So so smart. And again, super neat & tidy. Make the investment!!
Then... the white storage cube totes from The Container Store. Genius. Perfect for storing the garland for the stairway and also the smaller branches for our articial tree.
As for the large emptied tote that previously stored ornaments and holiday decorations that were no longer used... we trashed all the stuff we no longer use. The tote now contains only those things that we currently decorate with. Holiday storage perfection!
Need help doing the same? Contact me via the website or orderlybydanica@gmail.com
The storage items I purchased: