*sigh*

we said farewell to all of our cherished Christmas decorations this weekend. it seems like we put up the decorations and, suddenly and much too soon, they are coming back down. since all of us were home, we took advantage of the extra helping hands. it ended up being a good family activity while watching football.

as we were packing away the last of the decor yesterday, i thought it would be a good idea to share with you a few of my decoration organization ideas.

remember this simple Christmas/holiday card display that i created?

all i did was secure red velvet ribbon to the front of the doors. then i clipped each of the cards to the ribbon with mini-clothespins…

 

we ended up decorating the front of 3 doors in our main living area…

the cards were a great (and inexpensive way) to decorate and add more spirit to our home. the kids loved looking at the photos and picking out their friends. it was sad removing all of those pretty cards.

since i’ll do this display again next year, i simply rolled up the ribbon and added it to a large ziploc bag along with the clothespins. now all i need to do next Christmas is hang the ribbons (since it’s already measured to fit those doors) and start all over again!…

it was hard to say good bye to this sweet santa face…

and all of our Christmas books…

and all of the kids artwork…

even the little tree that sat in our eldest son’s bedroom was sad to be stored away…

yes, decorating a tree with Star Wars figures is completely acceptable in a 7 year old’s world…

we said good bye to our snowflake lights that lit up the night in each of the boys’ bedrooms…

{sharing all of this makes me feel like the grinch. you know that part in the book when he slithers into each home to remove decorations? then he stuffs everything up the chimney? yup, that was me this weekend. except i was preparing to stuff everything into bins – in an organized fashion, of course!}

everything was packed away safely into bins for next year – or should i say later this year? 😉

speaking of bins, a simple idea that works for us is having color-coded bins for each holiday. for example, these bins (from target) are great because they have a red lid. a red lid to us denotes Christmas decor….

and these bins (also from target) safely hold ornaments and have a green and red lid….

i also like that these bins are see-through. even though that lid color is enough for me to know what is inside, i do like the ability to see what exactly is in the bin.

in our storage area under the house, we have bins of various colors – each bin color denotes a different holiday. when i go under the house, i know exactly what to grab instead of opening lids and digging around. it saves lots of time!

if you have the time to do this, it would make you very efficient for next year. and you don’t need to organize all of your seasons now. i came up with this bin idea after many years of frustration.  over a period of a year or more, i updated our bins with each holiday that was approaching. if you plan on doing this, just take your time over the next year and you’ll be happy you did it!

gifts come so beautifully wrapped. sometimes so beautifully that we either don’t want to open the gift or we want to save the wrapping/tissue paper. but if you save the wrapping, what do you do with it? does anyone line their drawers with wrapping paper anymore?…

what i’ve done over the years is use leftover tissue and wrapping to secure items like the kids artwork…

 

and our ever-growing inventory of santa photo frames…

i wrap each of the santa frames in tissue paper before placing them inside the bins. i also lay the artwork in between layers of tissue paper to keep them safe….

cute little boxes like this are screaming to be re-purposed…

boxes like this have been great for holding our holly kissing ball, small music boxes, and very fragile ornaments.

i hope my little tips and ideas have helped you! how do you store away your holiday decorations?