When the holidays roll around, you decide to set a festive mood for your household by putting up decorations. However, when you look through your collection, you find a tangled mess of ornaments, lights and other items. Many people face this unpleasant reality year after year. Fortunately, there’s another way.

After putting up with unnecessary hassles every holiday season, it’s time to take control and get organized. While that may sound like a daunting task itself, you can actually make things easier with a few simple steps. Here are some essential tips for keeping your decoration stash in top shape after the holidays.

Buy Essential Organizing Supplies

Organizing becomes much easier when you have the right supplies for the job. Truly essential items vary from household to household, so you’ll need to think about your own list of requirements. Common go-to options include:

· Storage bins made from transparent plastic
· Storage bags
· Markers
· Cardboard boxes
· Tape
· Tissue paper
· Light holders

Sort By Holiday

Some people reserve their major decorating efforts for December. However, others have a tradition of putting up items for multiple holidays throughout the year. If you fall into this second category, you can save yourself a ton of problems by sorting decorations by holiday. In your available storage area, designate a spot for each seasonal celebration. If necessary, draw yourself a map that shows where everything’s located. You can also use color-coded labels, markers or bins to distinguish each holiday. When the appropriate time of year rolls around, you’ll know exactly where to look for the items you need.

Sort By Decoration Type

When sorting by holiday, you can take things one step further by also sorting by decoration type. When you place lights with lights, ornaments with ornaments, etc., you achieve two critical goals. First, you make it easier to find specific items in your collection. At the same time, you can decrease the odds of finding broken decorations when you pull things out of storage.

Discard Decorations You No Longer Use

If you’re like many decoration fans, there’s a good chance that your collection contains items you no longer use. Depending on your circumstances, this category may include:

· Broken decorations
· Decorations that no longer fit your current tastes or holiday themes
· Gift items that you don’t actually like
· Decorations you keep just because they were expensive to buy

To stay organized, you should strongly consider adding these types of items to your discard pile. And don’t be afraid to be a bit ruthless. The benefits of decluttering and organizing can make the process well worth it.

Downsize

For a variety of reasons, people sometimes move from large homes into smaller ones. If you make such a move, you can easily end up with more decorations than you need. That’s when you may want to consider downsizing your collection. Begin by discarding items you no longer use. In many cases, this is enough. If you still have too much, you face a couple of choices. First, you can bite the bullet and throw away (or donate) some of your less favored decorations. As an alternative, you can expand the storage space available to you onsite or offsite.

Store Your Decorations Elsewhere

That brings us to another organizing tip: storing your decorations elsewhere. This may be the best option if you just don’t want to get rid of your beloved collection. If you’re lucky, you may already own a weathertight shed or garage. Or if you have the money, you can build a new shed specifically for decoration storage purposes.

However, instead of taking this step, you may find it more convenient to rent space in a local storage facility. These types of facilities provide multiple advantages. To begin with, they’re made from materials designed to keep the weather out in all seasons. As a second benefit, most facilities rent spaces of varying sizes. This means that you can customize your space to fit your needs. It also means that you can limit how much you spend on storage. Top-quality facilities help protect your property with plenty of security safeguards.

With these tips in mind, you can make a complete, organized plan for decoration storage. And with this plan in place, you’ll never again dread digging out your preferred items for the next holiday. Instead, you’ll be able to find exactly what you need and whip through your decorating to-do list. Then it’s on to the merriment of the season with your family and friends.