If you missed my Breakfast Television Vancouver segment, please read on. Here are some tips and tricks on how you can make the take-down of your Holiday decorations easier (and next year’s set-up a breeze!).

Wrapping Paper

When storing your wrapping paper, avoid those loose and tattered edges on your rolls. Take a cardboard toilet paper roll, cut it length-wise and place it over your wrapping paper roll to secure the paper in place.

Also, here’s a good idea to keep all your wrapping paper together and secure- store all the rolls upright in a hanging suit bag. It’s a perfect size. Find an inexpensive suit bag with a clear front so you can easily identify the paper as Christmas.

Ribbons, Bows and Gift Tags

If you’ve accumulated many ribbons, bows and gift tags, use cloth drawer organizers to store these accessories in separate compartments. These organizers can fit into larger boxes and become more of a wrapping centre to hold other items, like small decorative bags as well.

Decorative Gift Bags

Decorative bags are great to hold gifts because they’re reusable and don’t take up much room to stow away. Use large clear zipper seal bags to hold flattened, decorative bags together. They come in a variety of sizes to make it easy. Use different bags to sort and separate by size, colour, theme, etc.

Lights

To organize your indoor and outdoor holiday lights, you have many good options. You can purchase lighting spools at some great local retailers. They’re designed to wrap lights around a base. Then you can zip and store the spool in a dedicated container if you wish.

Or you can wrap the lights together and place them in a sturdy zip bag. Label it by location like “outside” or “family room”, etc. Another thrifty idea is to wrap your lighting around a piece of cardboard you already have in the house. Label the cardboard and ta-da!

Ornaments

There are lots of ways to store ornaments. If you wish to purchase dedicated boxes, local retailers have many options, from soft-sided totes to plastic stackable bins.

Home options include bagging them, using egg cartons or even apple trays for storage. Fit these in a plastic tote to keep them safe and sound.

Store your Holiday decorations the right way now and you’ll be all organized next December!

See the full Breakfast Television segment here. Thank you to BT Vancouver and host Kyle Donaldson. Plus Bed Bath and Beyond and Room in Order for use of their great products.