I don't know about you, but I'm not the biggest fan of cleaning. I'm way too lazy busy to spend all day dusting and polishing and scrubbing. However, my house looks much nicer clean than dirty, and I don't want my kids growing up in an unorganized nasty mess. So, although I don't like it, I clean. The same goes for cooking. I actually really like cooking, I just rarely have the time I would like to prepare creative and healthy meals. I have developed some great tips and tricks to expend as little effort as possible maximize the efficiency of my cleaning and cooking, and I thought Time Saver Tuesday would be a great way to share those with all of you, as well as learn some new tricks and time savers! This week's problem:
In continuing with my theme of "The Christmas Hangover" this week, today we'll be tackling: The Putting Away of all
*Side Note: Wow, can you tell Mr. Floren is home this week to help me blog, or what? Subcategories? Exterior Lighting? Obviously his influence.*
The Tree: I personally think the tree is the hardest part, so we'll tackle it first. When taking down the tree, just work backwards. Whatever you put on last while putting it up, take down first. We don't hate ourselves enough to use tinsel, so we don't worry about that, and hopefully you don't have to either.
So, start with the ornaments. I highly recommend an ornament organizer or ornament storage box. These are essential for storage of ornaments. For the more fragile or special ones, I use a plain old shoebox and lots of tissue paper and tape, even bubble wrap
for a few that I would be heartbroken over if they were damaged. Using an organizer makes your life SO much easier. I do a different color scheme/theme every year, so I have an organizer for each color and type of ornament. For example, this year, we went with red and gold on our "big kid" tree, so all I had to do was pull out the organizer for red and the organizer for gold, and voila. As for the lights, we have a very low-tech and low-cost solution to storing those. Save all the empty wrapping paper rolls you end up with, and use those for the lights! Use one roll for each individual strand of lights. Cut a notch into one end, and slide one end of the strand into the notch, the plug will hold it in place. Then wrap the strand around, trying not to overlap any of the strand. When you reach the end of the roll, cut another notch for the other end of the strand! Easy peasy, cheap, and it will keep your lights from ending up like this:
The Stockings/Various Interior Decorations: We use stocking hooks
for our stockings, rather than nails or push pins, and our hooks are of a porcelain variety. To keep these safe in storage, we actually wrap the holder in the stocking for cushion, then store in a tupperware type bin. While we have always used cardboard box type storage devices in the past, in our new house we will be storing in only plastic type bins. We'll be stashing stuff in our crawl space under the house, and on the very slim chance it was ever to flood under there, I don't want everything to be ruined. That is one thing you may want to consider when choosing your storage system. As for other interior decorations, my best advice is to wrap everything individually, for the most safety, then label boxes clearly with each item located within so next year you don't have to dig through 47 boxes just to find the jingle bell wreath you love to hang above your front door. Not that I would know anything about that or something. Wreaths and Garlands: Thanks to modern technology, storing wreaths and garlands have never been easier. You can actually buy wreath storage devices, either of the bag or box/bin variety. Most even come with extra storage in the center, for wreath hooks or extra decor that needs stashing. We have a lighted garland that wraps around and up our banister, and I find the easiest way to store that is just in a big storage container
, laying it in the container in a zig zag pattern, and carefully layering it over itself. Once you have it all laid in, I find that zip-tying 
the layers together can save you from any tangling that could occur from any shifting or moving during the year.Exterior Lighting/Decorations: The biggest piece of advice I can give you here is to save the original boxes if at all possible. I find that re-wrapping the lights around the original spool and fitting them back into the box keeps them very neat, tidy, and untangled. If you've already thrown the box away or that is not possible, utilize the wrapping paper roll trick I talked about in The Tree section. When in doubt, zip ties work miracles. Also, a good timesaver is to fix any problems you may have (burned out or loose lights, check for frays in the line, etc.) before you put them away, because you know you'll forget about it by next year, and the last thing you want to do is get all those lights strung back up in 2010 and find out that they don't work. Fix the issues now and you'll be good to go for the hard part-decorating in the first place!
A safety timesaver note by Mr. Floren:
This is also a great time to perform maintenance on the electrical breakers in the house power panel. I recommend performing this maintenance with the removal of the exterior Christmas decorations. Breaker manufacturers recommend that breakers be "exercised" once a year to keep them operational. By "exercising" I mean turning the breaker all the way off and then turning it back on. When breakers are assembled they are provided with a lubricating compound to help keep them operational. If breakers are not regularly "exercised" this lubricant turns into more of a cement and will actually impede the motion of the breaker. Getting in the habit of "exercising" the breakers will keep breakers operational and reduce the chance of a fire.
Wow, thanks Mr. Floren! Doing this routine maintenance really has nothing to do with the actual removal of the lights, it's just a great way to remember. My hubby, he's a thinker. Love it.
I hope you found this post helpful! If you have an idea you'd like to share, please feel free to leave it in the comments or email it to me at kisha.floren@gmail.com and I'd be happy to share it in a future Time Saver Tuesday post!
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