It's time to "undecorate." Here are some guidelines:
- Set a deadline. My husband is from Puerto Rico, where they celebrate Three Kings Day on January 6th– it's kind of a big deal. Each year we use this date as a guideline for our undecorating, typically the weekend after that day. Another good guideline is the weekend after the New Year celebrations. Choose something that works for you and stick with it year after year. Having decisions already made means it's simpler… and you avoid the risk of procrastinating and being the person with the dead tree on the curb at Valentine's Day.
- Take a photo before you take it all down. If you are really happy with how your decor looked this year, take some photos of your rooms so you can remember how you did it. If you want to be super-organized, you can even try putting all of the decor for one room in bins together with the pictures stored inside for reference.
- Use our centralizing method to get it cleared out fast. Choose a space– a dining room is really effective– where you quickly grab everything holiday-related from around the house and put it all together in one spot. Dining room tables provide a large flat surface that makes it easy to sort and pack. It feels more manageable this way, and the rest of the house gets back to normal quickly.
- Look for deals on bins and other containers right now. We all know about those wonderful post-holiday sales… if you need containers for your decorations, it's a great time to get some. Don't forget Goodwill and other thrift stores for even better deals. There are dozens of great specialty products out there for storing ornaments and lights– but good ol' bins are just fine too. I do really like getting a special bag to hold artificial trees. You can find those at amazon.com
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- Don't keep anything that is broken beyond repair or that you have not used in two years or more. It's easy to fall into the trap of just packing everything quickly without thinking, but pay attention to what you are keeping. It might make some of those boxes easier to haul down from the attic next year! Remember also to store candles and other temperature-sensitive items in a climate-controlled area.
- Remember this process next year. When you are feeling all festive and decking the halls, remember that you will have to undecorate later when you feel less festive. Don't get carried away. Sometimes less is more!
- Reward yourself for your good work with some fresh flowers— maybe more than one bouquet, just from the grocery store if you like. Sometimes the house looks really sparse after having been decorated (possibly since Halloween).
Have you undecorated yet? Do tell! Share your thoughts in the comments. And Happy New Year!
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We used three kings day in our house growing up too! It is a “conversation” with my husband every year, when he wants to start taking the decorations down before new years.
I’m working on it and have thought about packing by rooms. The dining table is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
My hatest part…undecorating 🙁 and your right… I can’t believe the holidays are over!
Such timely and use-able tips! One more little trick I use is to insert notes and written instructions into the bins to make decorating easier. For example, I include “formula” for wrapping the garland and lights around our bannister so that it all comes out even. I also rubber band together the components for each section so there’s never the repeated and so annoying question of “Hey, which section goes where?” These written instructions also ensure that whoever is in charge of the bannister can easily do it MY WAY — which in this case IS the best way! 😉
I was glad to see this blog. I usually have all of my decorations down before NY’s Eve, because my mother always said it was bad luck to keep them up after NY’s day…don’t usher in the new with visions of the old. I always thought it was a Southern thing but not many people have heard that. Now that I think about it, maybe that was her way of getting us to help her. Last weekend I took all of the decorations down around the house, except the tree, and I plan on doing that this weekend. Glad to know I’m not alone. I had my black eyed peas and turnip greens for New Year’s Day, so I think I’m covered on the luck.
I try to make ‘undecorating’ as pleasant as decorating was. So, I put on my favorite instrumental Christmas music, pour myself a glass of vino, and enjoy the decorating process in ‘reverse’!
My English mother said it was unlucky to have decorations up after 12th night. (which is Jan 6th so the same deadline as you had) Growing up in S.E. London, things get very dusty by then so things really did need cleaning and putting away.
Dining table is a great staging area and the kitchen table too for other parts of the house that are decorated like guest rooms, bathrooms, kitchen etc. and you can sort & pack away by areas this way too…the main tree area I like to pack away by sections of ornaments on the tree and the pictures do help ’cause it goes up easy the following year & reminds me to leave a small spot in the middle for the current year’s addition of ornaments and keeping the others rotating around it–works for me & the take-down is a breeze…by the way–I am done and ready to ring in the New Year with a clean house!
Happy New Year Lorie and I look forward to your emails each and every week–it keeps me on track!
Great suggestions. I’m going to start this TODAY! I like the idea of putting everything on the dining room table and making that “command central.” As always – thanks to Clutter Diet for great advice!
My mom had a 12th-day-thing going too; she did not refer to it as Three Kings Day, but did mention “bad luck” despite the fact we are not supersticious.
This is great advice, Lorie. I pack up acording to area also. With boxes labeled “TREE”, “MANTEL” etc. When I’m ready to decorate, I pull them out as time avails: 45 mins for the mantel, 2hrs for the tree, etc. That way I don’t have 15 boxes in the living room at once for several days (yes, several days…I decorate almost every room in the house).
I use 3M hooks & velcro for hanging things like garlands on the mantel & stairway banisters. I even use it to help secure the tree (it only took one year of the tree falling over to figure that one out-HA! I put ALL of the 3M products in my Box labeled “Christmas GENERAL 1”. It’s the first box I pull out to begin decorating. It also contains all of the extra stuff like both silver & green ornament hooks, a couple of extension cords, extra light bulbs, my “pull-light-bulbs-out” tool, a roll of florist wire, etc.
I also have an outdoor “GENERAL 1” box. It contains heavy duty florist wire, outdoor light timers, etc.
This goes along with taking down decorations. I shop for Christmas paper plates and napkins, ribbon, and computer letter paper this time of year on sale and store it with my decor. That saves time, money, and energy come next December. Also, while I’m looking around in stores this after-Christmas week, I’m getting gift ideas for next year and jotting those down on paper I’ll store with the decor.
When I had a much larger house and entertained more, I stored all my Christmas decor by room. It made it so easy to decorate a room at a time, according to how much time I had that day to do. I used plastic tubs and marked each one for each room.
Lois