Tidy Up the Halls: Decluttering Christmas Decorations the Easy Way

It’s that time of year again! Time to deck the halls, hang the stockings by the chimney with care, and pull out those old Christmas inflatables that typically only see the light of day for a month or two out of the year.

But when you have too many Christmas decorations, what should be fun and festive can quickly turn into an absolute nightmare. Getting rid of Christmas decorations can be a little tricky, especially if you’re overwhelmed with too much decor you’ve collected over the years.

Decluttering Christmas decorations is a great way to avoid stress during the holidays while still spreading cheer to others through donation and gifting. This helpful guide contains tips and tricks for sorting through too many decorations and information for how to donate or recycle your used decor properly.

Getting rid of Christmas decorations?! The very thought of it seems a little Grinch-like, but if you do it right, it’s actually a great opportunity to not only take a walk down holiday memory lane but it will make your Christmas decorating more manageable and less overwhelming – especially when you simply have too many Christmas decorations.

Ask yourself these questions to consider if you have too many Christmas decorations:

• Do I have more Christmas decor than places for storing them?
• Do I have duplicate decorations sitting around collecting dust?
• Do I have bins of decor that haven’t left the garage, attic or basement?
• Could planes flying overhead mistake my roof or yard for a landing strip?

Now that we’ve determined if you have too many decorations, it’s time to start decluttering.

To get a jump on decluttering Christmas decorations and make the sorting process much easier, here’s a list of items that you can discard from your collection right away: (but don’t throw them in the trash yet – we’ll get there soon!)

• One of each of any duplicates you have
• Broken ornaments, decorations and lights
• Decorations that you didn’t use the previous year
• Gift wrap, boxes and tissue paper that is ripped or torn
• Boxes of old greeting cards you’ve been saving but never used

Congrats! Step one is done. Now it’s time to create a discard pile for your broken decorations and unusable gift wrap, and a donation pile for the rest.

Sort Decorations By Holiday

Now that you’ve gotten your collection down to only those decorations that you use, are sentimental, or that you just can’t let go of yet, the next step is to sort and organize them by holiday and create a storage system that works for you. This will allow you to find things more easily when the time comes to pull everything out next year.

If you’re the kind of person who just shoves all of their holiday decorations into the same few boxes or totes, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. When you sort your decorations by holiday, it not only makes finding the right decorations easier, but it takes the stress out of having to hunt down that special gravy boat for Thanksgiving or that Jack Skellington inflatable for Halloween.

Make storing your holiday decorations fun and festive by choosing color-themed bins for every holiday that you decorate for.

For instance, you can use a bin of one color with a lid of another one, like so:

• Kwanza: green and black
• Christmas: red and green
• Hannukah: blue and silver
• Halloween: orange and black
• Thanksgiving: brown and yellow

Color-coding your decoration bins makes it much easier to find the decorations you’re looking for when you need them. Plus, you can usually find these bins on sale at Home Depot or Walmart during holiday seasons in the colors that match the holiday.

Start With the Big Decorations

Once you have sorted your decorations by holiday, go ahead and go through the remaining decorations to see if there is anything else that you can declutter, including multiples and broken items.

Divide your remaining decorations by type (lights, ornaments, knick-knacks, candles, etc.) to make it easier to find what you’re looking for and keep everything nice and neat in their bins.

Even when you have decorations that are in good condition, you might still be able to declutter the Christmas decorations you rarely or never use each year.

Calculate the amount of time it takes to set up and maintain your large decorations like trees and inflatables. If you don’t have the time to commit to setting up large inflatables and yard decor every year, go ahead and set those aside to either sell or donate.

During this step, ask yourself the following questions to make sorting easier:

• Is the decoration easy to set up?
• Are you really willing to put up the decoration every year?

If you answered ‘no’ to these questions, go ahead and stick it in the “donate” pile. This doesn’t only go for inflatables but also applies to Christmas trees and wreaths.

🎄 FREE Live Christmas Tree Removal: Do you have a ton of decorations and ornaments that need to be tossed? Save ’em until after the holidays and you could qualify for free tree removal and disposal from LoadUp! Offer valid between December 26 – January 15 with 2+ removal items.

Sorting Ornaments and Small Decorations

With the big stuff out of the way, you can now go through all of your smaller decorations and make some choices about what to keep, and what to get rid of.

Choose a Color Scheme and Style

When it comes to decluttering ornaments and smaller Christmas decorations, pick a color scheme and style that matches your home. Are you more modern or more traditional? Sticking to one style will help your decor match and not look out of place or tacky.

Anything else that doesn’t match your color scheme can be placed in the donation pile.

Hang on to Sentimental Decorations

Special ornaments that commemorate dates, were given to you by someone special or that have been handed down in your family should never wind up in the trash.

Going buck wild and clearing out everything – even the stuff that means something to you – will result in your regretting the choices you made in the craze of decluttering Christmas decorations. So hang onto them. They’re special and you’ll want to cherish those memories.

By now you should have a pretty nice pile of Christmas decorations for donation. But where are the best places to donate your old Christmas decorations?

Now that you have sorted through all of your Christmas decorations and made neat little piles, what do you do with the ones that aren’t broken? When you have too many Christmas decorations, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re all broken or ready for the trash. So why not donate them, instead?

Donating Christmas decorations is a wonderful way to spread holiday cheer while also feeling good about your well-loved decor going to future good use. As they say, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

There’s truly no better way to get in the Christmas spirit than being giving and charitable to your fellow man. After all, isn’t that what Christmas is really all about?

Where to Donate Christmas Decorations

Thanks to the internet and social media, there are many resources for what to do with your items once you’re done decluttering Christmas decorations. You could haul everything to a donation center or give them to your friends, family, and even your neighbors.

You could always go to nationwide thrift stores and donation centers like Goodwill and Salvation Army. Note these charities sell the items that you donate, so you’ll never really know where your donation went.

If you’d like to really feel that Christmas giving spirit, you’ve got some pretty cool online options that can connect you with your neighbors to donate Christmas ornaments, trinkets and more. For obvious reasons, the best time to donate Christmas decorations is always prior to the Holiday season.

“Buy Nothing” on Facebook: If you’re on Facebook, see if there is a Buy Nothing group for your local city. Buy Nothing is an amazing way to post pictures of your unwanted Christmas collection that others living in your city can comment on and you can gift to. Oftentimes, people in the group will give you backstories about why they want the item or what they’ll use it for. Here, you can see the impact of your gifts while also connecting with your community.

Nextdoor: The Nextdoor app is also a good way to connect with your neighbors and offer them free ornaments and decorations. However, they’ll require that you verify your address by postcard before you’re able to post, so if you’re trying to get rid of things in a hurry, Nextdoor might take too long.

You can always offer your unwanted decorations to your friends, family, and coworkers. Who knows? Maybe you have that one special ornament that someone close to you has been searching for for years. You might just be someone’s holiday hero this year!

When you have an abundance of broken or unwanted decor, get rid of your Christmas decorations the easy way with LoadUp. Since we don’t require pickup minimums and charge on an item by item basis, you can get all of your boxes of unwanted or broken decorations hauled away for eco-friendly disposal from the comfort of your home for 20-30% less than other junk removal companies.

It’s easy to go overboard when decorating for Christmas, so when you’re ready, we’re here to make decluttering Christmas decorations as easy as possible. Simply place your unwanted items in boxes or bags, visit our website and check out our upfront price generator to get your no-obligation free quote. If you like what you see, you can book a pickup using our online booking system. With local-loaders based all across the country, you can hire one of our friendly haul- iday crews to come as soon as tomorrow.

And while you’re at it, go ahead and get that dry live tree removed! With LoadUp, you can have your Christmas tree removed and hauled away for eco-friendly disposal for free when you book two or more items for removal between December 26th and January 31st. What better way to undeck the halls while also purging all of your unwanted decorations?!

Related Articles from the Trash Talk Blog:

• Get FREE Christmas Tree Disposal
• How to Recycle Your Christmas Tree
• How to Make Your Holidays Pet Friendly
• The Ultimate Holiday Decluttering Guide