Christmas storage

[Soon2AdjustYou]

Well it is coming up on that time of year

How do you guys store your icicle lights, outdoor lights, trees, ect?

Totes, special wracks?

The wife and I are about out of this apartment so I'm just gathering ideas for future reference.

thanks

Dr. B

 

[trbomax]

we just leave them up for summer "festival" lights!

 

[A1an]

We have all our **** in large rubbermaid-like storage containers. Those are up in the attic or in one of the extra closets.

 

[Heavy Metal Doctor]

Clear plastic tote bins for most of the stuff. The icicle type lights are a pain to store - all the danglies get tangled up, so I tend to throw each section into a plastic shopping (grocery) bag so they don't all just end up in one huge tangle.

 

[Gary S]

I don't decorate for Christmas, so I don't have lights or a tree. That means I don't need to worry about storing anything.

 

[eldirector]

Same as some of the above....

Each strand of lights goes into its own Walmart bag. The bags are packed into Rubbermaid totes, which are stacked in the attic. Ornaments get their own tote, and all the random stuff for other holidays are in their own totes for each holiday.

The fake tree comes apart into 3 sections, and I just tie the branches in the "up" position with twine. It is a 2-person job to carry it, but not too bad.

We can get everything out for Christmas, get the tree up and decorated, and a wreath on the porch in under 2 hours. Pretty easy, actually.

 

[IH82BL8]

Big red and green totes sold at H.d./Lowes/Target. Try to avoid letting them (or anything else that's not garage-related) be stored in the garage.

 

[warmpancakes]

throw away and buy new when its on clearance last year tractor supply clearenced led lights for .96 cents per strand

 

[crewchief888]

when we were looking at houses, one thing i insisted on was a basement.
old lady couldnt understand the concept at all. she spent most of her life in fl and texas, where there are no basements.
all her x-mas decorations are stored in storage totes, and stacked under the basement steps.
most of my halloween decorations, and props are in stroage totes stacked up in the laundry room, the rest of the stuff is in the rafters in the garage.
we keep 2000ft or so of outdoor ext cords in seperate storage totes, they get used both for x-mas and halloween.

i dont store anything in the attic, my access hole is just big enough that i can squeeze through, so i'd be a PITA to have anything up there

 

[cowboyjosh]

Christmas lights are a fire hazard, as a homebuilder and a licensed Master Electrician, I'll be damned if I have a fire caused by something electrical, including Christmas lights.

 

[drmoonshine]

Usually everything year when they have an after Christmas sell at Target, you can find the rubbermaid containers for really cheap. That is what I use for everything that is store away.

 

[racer1735]

I use large, rubber tubs and lay several sheets of newspaper between strings of lights. That keeps them from getting tangled and eases the task/chore of putting them up next year. Ornaments go back in there box, then get packed in a tub, too.

 

[rwhite692]

Christmas lights are a fire hazard, as a homebuilder and a licensed Master Electrician, I'll be damned if I have a fire caused by something electrical, including Christmas lights.

Wow. So how does Santa find your house?

 

[reinhardt]

the only thing better than hanging the Christmas decorations is burning them in the annual decoration bonfire on the 26th. makes storage easy and lots of black smoke too. j/k

storage totes in the attic. i made it a little easy to put them in and out of the attic tho. i screwed a 2x4 between the rafters above the access hatch and hang a small block and tackle from that. (i bought the block and tackle at northern tool, it's intended for hoisting up deer carcasses) i climb up into the attic, then the wife moves the ladder and hooks the stuff onto the hoist. i winch it up and put it away. lowering it down is the reverse. i've got a separate attic over the garage and one over the house. the christmas stuff is in the house attic, the car stuff in the garage attic. i take the hoist from one attic to the other. i find it easier to hoist the stuff up than to carry it up a set of attic stairs. i also dont wanna pay for 2 sets of attic stairs.

 

[Sterff]

My grandfather made a cedar closet in his attic and stores all of his decorations, lights, wreaths, etc. in it. I don't know how cheap this route would be though. He is a co-owner of a planing mill so he gets wood very cheap.

 

[tatra]

does one decorate for festivus?.........

 

[jwh]

There's 8 rubbermaid totes full of Christmas stuff under our king size bed.

Plus a few boxes full in the attic.

John in Rochester NY

 

[mmhouse]

Plastic totes in the attic.

 

[nate379]

All my Christmas **** fits in a 2ftx2ft box... including the tree. I have better things to do then waste time and money with lights and all that stuff.

 

[Ocho]

Our whole neighborhood puts red lights lining the sidewalks. It looks really nice, and I don't have to get on the ladder to put lights out. The downside is you have to hook the lights on these little wire stakes that really chew up your fingers. A couple of years ago I decided it would be brilliant if I zip tied my lights to pvc pipe (painted green), then I could pull up or deploy my lights in a matter of minutes.

So...one day I spent a ridiculous amount of time laying out and zip tying lights to pvc pipe. I wanted them to look "just right" so I zip tied them babies real tight to that pipe. What I did not know then (that I do now) is the zip ties bound the lights to the pipe so tightly, they could not expand and contract properly. I had light sockets jumping off the wire every night it froze.

I blamed the neighbor kids and their darn skateboards and bicycles.
(Which reminds me, I still owe an apology to one more kid...)

Anyway, when it came time to store the dang things, they would not fit anywhere. My original plan had been to hang them from rafters in the attic, but they took up more space that I thought they would and I ended up breaking off even more more bulbs. Utter project fail.

The next year I bought new lights and I'm back to the little metal stakes.

 

[aqr81]

I use a lot of Rubbermaid 18 gal roughtotes for the outdoor lights (they stack good). We alternate the lighting each year, rotating through 4 different sets of lights. Also have many outdoor cutouts from 5/8 ply that we light up. We go fairly crazy with Christmas...lots of decorations inside and outside, even have 2 old aluminum trees and original light wheels to go along with a real tree. All that stuff is stored up in the attic area in garage. We have a plastic storage tubs in two closets and under beds to store the inside decorations and ornaments.

 

[69dz302z28]

sure you need a pole...

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Here's how I store my Christmas light stuff. I've got a GIANT but similar plastic bin I found at Big Lots for the majority of the in-house decorations. No pix of that though, sorry.

 

[Walterchang]

Zip lock bags labeled as to where they go. One strand per bag. All in a Rubbermaid bin.

 

[79firebird]

on my deck i have a wooden bench that opens that i put it all in. I also zapstrap each one also

 

[thdewey]

does one decorate for festivus?.........

Festivus for the rest of us!!!! A Festivus pole is easy to store, no lights to get tangled and isn't a fire hazzard.

http://www.festivuspoles.com/pages/Festivuspoles.htm

http://www.festivusweb.com/

 

[tatra]

i just threw the festivus out there tongue in cheek..........interesting ..........seems dec 18th is the day..........i cordially invite all to gj on that day for the airing of the grievances...........might be nice to let the banned members come back into the fold?..........as a prelude to the season following the all important festivus?.............maybe they should pay a fine in the way of buying a t-shirt for new born chosen by committee?............whose on board?..........

 

[Strouty]

throw away and buy new when its on clearance last year tractor supply clearenced led lights for .96 cents per strand

That makes my pancakes hot, why would you throw them away? Waste not want not, waste now support china. I am just giving you ****, but don't throw them away, donate them or something.

Is this thread politically correct? Should it be Holiday decoration storage? LOL

 

[xcgates]

Huh? Christmas decor? Me? Single bachelor?

I say decorate with motorcycle and car parts!!! In other words, just like the rest of the year.

 

[cowboyjosh]

Wow. So how does Santa find your house?

He looks for the house without any Christmas lights, I e-mailed him
When I was at my last house 5 years ago, I did go all out and put up Christmas lights the day after Thanksgiving, spent all day outside, I carefully unpacked the brand new lights, tested them, kept them on while I hung them, it was awesome. Fast forward to the next night, 3/4 of the lights didn't work, I was pissed, I checked the wires, they were all intact, here a majority of the fuses in the cheap *** Chinese lights had blown, even though I had NOT exceeded the maximum amount of daily chaining allowed; I think a power surge fried them cause some of the neighbors experienced the same fate to some of their lights; they however patiently replaced their damaged lights, me I was so GD mad, I literally ripped all the lights down, thru them all into a garbage bag, brought them back to Target and after arguing with the loser employees at this particular store, got my money back. The Target folks didn't want to refund the money because the lights had been taken out of the packaging. So now the most we do is put a spot light on a wreath; besides I live on a quiet road that hardly anybody drives down so whats the use of spending the money.

 

[metal1313]

i dont have to...im a jew, sometimes it does have its upsides, like not having to store/buy all that ****

 

[MadMechMaster]

I put the fake tree in a clean, rolling trash can with a tight lid. It's just tall enough for the poles, and the branches lay flat so that I don't have to take too long arranging them. The wife takes care of the rest.

 

[Jay H 237]

The outside stuff (C9s, C7s, miniture lights, spot lights, extension cords) are stored in 4 or 5 cardboard boxes on a shelf in the garage.*

The indoor lights, cords and ornaments are stored in Rubbermaid containers in the semi-finished basement. The tree goes back into it's original box up in the attic.


* don't have as much outdoor stuff as I used to. I really enjoy decorating and entered the town wide contest for several years and would have the lights lit from a few days after Thanksgiving until the second week of January. After spending all the effort putting them up I wanted to enjoy them for a bit. The bad thing is the house is across the street from a school bus stop and the kids would constantly take the bulbs out of the C9 and C7 sets and smash them on the street and sidewalk. I'd turn the lights on at night and see sections of the trees dark and go out there to find the sets with sockets still there but the bulbs missing Needless to say I cut back on the amount of lights now and concentrate on the shrubs right next to the house.

 

[thdewey]

i dont have to...im a jew, sometimes it does have its upsides, like not having to store/buy all that ****

Ha ha ha
He thinks that it's about religion...... That's funny.

It's about putting out more light than your neighbor silly.

 

[A_Pmech]

I don't have any of that ****, so I don't have to store it.

 

[A1an]

For those who are cheap like my wife and I....check out Ikea for cheap storage containers. I think the last time we compared Ikea containers with the Rubbermaid containers they were about half the price.