Christmas Light Storage: Unpack For The Season!

Christmas lights are the most difficult to pick through after a year?s worth of storage. Save your self the hassle by taking time to wrap the Christmas lights in an efficient manner now, before boxing everything back up! Keep in mind that Christmas lights, especially the less durable indoor ones, are really only meant for 90 days of usage. Try to replace your Christmas lights at least every third season. The most inexpensive way to do this is to buy a set or two of Christmas lights at each post-season sale

There are a few techniques for successful Christmas light storage. One idea is to purchase boxes specifically manufactured for Christmas light storage. These generally look like file boxes that come with many flat surfaced pieces to wrap each string around. Perfect for avoiding tangled messes, and you can organize the way you put the strings in each slot, whether by color or size or indoor/outdoor usage.

But then again, if you want to be creative and economical, you can use items already in your household for Christmas light storage. If you have plastic bags, cardboard boxes, or empty wrapping paper tubes, then go ahead and make use of them to carefully store your Christmas lights.

Here are some suggestions that have proved most useful for Christmas light storage:

Wrap each string of lights individually, and fasten in several places with bread strings. You can store each string in its own plastic bag, and keep them all together in a cardboard box. Label the box ?Christmas lights? and if you end up filling more than one box, write ?1 of 2? or however many there are. This is a huge help, especially if you have a lot of outdoor Christmas lights!

Another idea is to use empty wrapping paper tubes. Cut a small slit in each end of the tube, you then thread one end of a set of lights through a slit. Wrap the lights along the tube until you reach the end, and thread that end through the other slit. This is a very safe and convenient way to keep the string from tangling.

You can use this same concept with a square of cardboard. This may be a shape easier for you to store, also. Just make sure both ends of the string are secure in the two slits, so your Christmas lights don?t end up unraveling and getting tangled anyway!

Anne Clarke writes numerous articles for websites on gardening, parenting, recreation, education and d?cor. Her background includes teaching and gardening. For more of her articles about Christmas decor, please visit Christmas Lights.