I hope you haven’t already taken down your Christmas decorations because I have an easy way for storing Christmas lights. I tried this method last year and for the first time, I didn’t have to go through the struggle of tangled lights! And this last November, when I brought in all the decoration boxes, I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to take them out, too!
This year, I’m adding a couple of more tips to make the whole process easier for both storing and unpacking my many indoor strings of Christmas lights!
1. Let the lights hang from the top of a moving box and slowly lower them in, leaving them to coil on their own as they go down.
2. Before adding more light strings, cover completely with a sheet of strong paper and mark where the specific string was placed in the house. Next year, it will be easy to take it out of the box and you’ll know exactly in which part of the house the specific string has to go. (note: I find free and strong sheets of paper at Costco, between the stacks of kitchen paper).
3. Continue by adding more light strings and separating each of them with a layer of paper.
4. Make sure that the box is always stored in the same position so the lights don’t shift around!
Light strings that had an extension cord on, are stored without removing the extension cord, so they’re ready to be plugged in next year.
In many places of the house, I had strung together several lights so I stored them all together without breaking them apart. In that case, I added a piece of painter’s tape on both ends to be able to easily see and remove these long strings out of the box, just by pulling out one end.
I hope this storing method will work for you, too!
Happy New Year!
