Q: Can you share how you store all of your Christmas decorations? Since you rotate ornaments each year and have a large tree plus a smaller tabletop tree, along with exterior decor and mantel pieces, I’m curious how much space it takes. I have an attic similar to yours, which I think is where you keep yours, but I don’t have a system so it feels chaotic. Any tips to get mine under control? Thanks! – Meghan
A: We get this question a lot, so you’re not alone, Meghan. We store everything in about a 6 foot by 5 foot area in our attic. Our attic is bigger, but the footprint for all the bins and boxes you see in the photos below is roughly that size. We stack bins and containers strategically and label each one, which makes it simple to find what we need the following year.
Our guiding principle is “like with like.” All plugs, cords, and window candles go in one bin. Tabletop items live in matching green bins. Ornaments from a particular tree or season are grouped together. Keeping related items together saves time and prevents the feeling that everything is just being shoved into random containers and forgotten.
Here’s a closer look at how we pack up the large dining room tree. We remove all ornaments and place them in long, shallow plastic bins. We keep another similar bin in the attic for ornaments that are out of rotation for a year or two — seasonal or novelty pieces that don’t make the current tree, like fruit-shaped ornaments from past trees. Many ornaments are reused year after year, like the white/silver and soft pink ones that reappear on different trees.
Those shallow bins hold nearly all of our ornaments, except for the ones on the small tabletop tree. Because the bins are only about 5″ deep, they stack well and don’t eat much floor space. For especially fragile ornaments we wrap them in newspaper before packing, but most go in unwrapped and stay safe. After more than five years using this method we haven’t broken a single ornament in storage or transport, so it’s worked very well for us. We’re careful when placing and retrieving the bins in the attic, so they aren’t constantly jostled — if they were, we’d wrap more rigorously.
The tabletop tree follows the same idea. Special mixed-and-matched ornaments go into a smaller Tupperware bin. The most delicate ones get newspaper, but most simply nestle in. Each year we pull this bin out, add new favorites, and remove anything we no longer love. Choosing a bin that relates to the size of the tree prevents hoarding ornaments that won’t ever fit — older, less-special pieces get donated, passed on, put in a yard sale, or moved to the larger tree bins if there’s a chance we’ll use them there.
Tabletop and mantel items are stored similarly. Freestanding pieces like wooden reindeer or feather trees stay unbagged if they’re sturdy. Smaller ornaments or delicate bits go into large zip-top bags with a short label describing their intended display (for example, “kitchen cake stand ornaments” or “console lamp accents”). Those labeled bags then slide into the green bins reserved for tabletop and mantel decor.
Everything grouped this way makes it intuitive to find and set up holiday displays. The green bins hold mantel pieces like faux wrapped gifts, small feather trees, and wooden centerpiece items. Grouping by display location and function keeps similar items together and makes decisions about what to keep, donate, or move to a different storage bin straightforward.
So that’s how we store our holiday decorations: a compact, labeled footprint in the attic, shallow stackable bins for ornaments, smaller dedicated bins for tabletop trees, and grouped green bins for mantel and tabletop decor. It’s simple, space-efficient, and keeps things organized year to year. How do you store yours? Plastic bins, original boxes, cardboard dividers — there are lots of systems that work. Share what’s worked for you!
Update: You can check out our favorite holiday decor finds on our site — many are budget-friendly and under $15.