After you are done enjoying all of the holiday festivities and you have awed at your decorations for long enough, you’ll have to undecorate your home. Be aware as you take down the decorations. If you love the way they were set up this year, make it easier on yourself to set it up the same way next year. I have some tips to help you take it all down, to nail it all again next year!
I always do some garland on my banister, and to make it fit perfectly, I need to ensure that I start at just the right spot and that I “travel” up the banister in just the right way. Even missing one post or doing an accidental double wrap means that I either have too much at the end or run out! Last year, I decided to really pay attention to how I could get it just perfect. I found that my lights needed to go around every other post, and the rest of the garland needed to go around every post. Details like this can be easily forgotten as you’re setting up the next year – even if you are certain that you will remember! To make my life easier, I wrote on my storage reel what I needed to do. Now, every year, it’s super easy, and I no longer end up with a bunch left over at the end.
You can do the same thing with Christmas lights on the house. Make a mark on the strand for where to start. That way, you know it will reach exactly across the house with no need to go back and forth adjusting your center point. Even placements of other outdoor decorations can be marked or written on the back of the decoration so that you know where it goes.
Making these notes as you remove your decorations can make things so easy to set up next year. PLUS, as the kids get older, they can maybe start decorating the house on their own – no instructions necessary!
If you have your stuff going into bins for storage, make notes about what’s in the bin! The more detail you can put on your labels, the better! If you have very large bins, it may be easier to label it with a simple label to reference another more detailed label. The better you know what’s in each bin, the easier it is to put it all away, and then it’s even easier to take it all out again next year! Everyone can help out better when there’s more details on the label. Labels can make it clear to know exactly where to find it, where to put it away, AND where/how to set it up, thanks to those quick reference notes right on the decorations!
So this year, as you take down those beautiful decorations, make notes for yourself. Notes for the labels on the bins of where it was set up and how it was set up, even add to the bin any special extension cords that were required (don’t repurpose those through the year because you will just end up needing to find other ones again at Christmas!)
You will find next year’s set up goes more smoothly and is done faster than ever before! You’ll gain more time to cross off all those other to do’s!
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