From Christmas to Christmas, we all tend to get more decorations.
For some of us, the kids make special things each year at school or are given their own Christmas ornament. People give ornaments as gifts, something pretty catches our eye or we ‘inherit’ things from our families.
However you collect them, your Christmas decoration collection probably grows every year.
What to do with those decorations?
It’s nice to keep all those decorations because they are all beautiful in their own way and may have sentimental value, too.
But let’s face it, storing them throughout the year can be challenging and there is only so much space on your Christmas tree…
So what do you do with those decorations?
I know some people like a stylish Christmas tree so only store selected items or buy a new set every year to match a theme.
Others are happy with a haphazard decoration style, so let the kids go wild with whatever they have, giving pride of place to items with sentimental value.
Even at 14 my daughter enjoys seeing the decorations she made in kinder and prep or at home with me, so I certainly keep the decorations my kids make. With 4 kids, though, the tree is filling up!
I often decorate a gum tree outside our house (choosing suitable decorations for the impact of weather of course so never child made ones) so that uses a few of our decorations. And I’m thinking of using a second tree this year!
We decorate our Christmas tree with ornaments collected over the years. Every year we tend to buy one new decoration although sometimes Iβll receive a new one as a gift. Each decoration reminds me of a certain Christmas or evokes a different memory. Thereβs no real colour scheme but I love how colourful and cheerful it is.
Perhaps a quarter of the decorations have been around since I was a child. I admit I have my favourites which I like to display prominently. I remember one year refusing to put away the large felt reindeer after Christmas. So now it has a prized position on my grandmotherβs mantelpiece all year round. It makes me smile when I see it.
Iβm in my early twenties and like your daughter I still like to keep the ornaments I made when I was younger. π
I hear you, Tajnz – our tree has no scheme and is a chaotic mix of colours and styles every Christmas but that’s fun!
I love that your Grandmother still has a reindeer on display all year because you didn’t want Christmas to end one year π
My mom always used mine and my siblings crafts as decorations. We also each had a special ornament for each year that we would just add to the overly decorated tree. π
So you just kept adding them to the tree, mamaof6?
I’m just finding that our tree can’t hold them all anymore – and I with a two year old I know I have many more handmade decorations to come π
Is Love Santa on Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay. I’m loving reading all the Christmas recipes and stories – I want to start some new traditions as our new family when buba arrives next month.
hi GivingSpirit. Yes – you can find us on Twitter under the name LoveSantaAu and we’d love you to follow us as well as contribute to the blog with your stories. Good luck with the baby and making your family.
I’ve been collecting Christmas ornaments since 1981. Each year I add at least one to the collection, so it’s been growing for 31 years. I’m not really into themed trees. I use as many from my collection that will fit on the tree each year. Some of the special ones, especially those that are fragile, I use as part of my table displays.
Wow, actively collecting Christmas ornaments for 31 years – good effort! I gather you have a few tabe displays as well as the tree to empty your decoration box?
I live in a small home so there are not many places to decorate. Plus, the cats would destroy any Christmas tree or ornaments.
However, if I did get overwhelmed with excess decorations, I would: a) donate them to the Salvation army, b) have a yard sale, and c) give as gifts.
One day, I would love to have a home where I can truly decorate, as I would love to do the old English theme, very natural and cozy.
I hope you have some decorations up each year, Beyre as I think you’d be happy with them in your home – you just have to find the right depcrations and locations to remove the cats’ interest π
Throughout the years I weed out broken store bought items, but all the ones that were hand made or made specifically by my children, will never be thrown away. I used to have a bare tree by the time we had to put up the tree, but then the kids got older and so did my cats, so now I do have many more decorations to put up for the year, and luckily I have the space and the helpers(kids) to put everything up without stressing me out.
Very pleased to hear you have helpers for putting up Christmas decorations, palaciosv – it’s much more fun to do it together, isn’t it? As well as saving stress.
Those decorations will definitely pile up and it’s an interesting way of using the excess. Maybe donating or giving them away would be best if you really don’t want to throw it away and they take up too much room. I never had that problem as I don’t accumulate new ones each year.
I’m impressed you don’t manage to acucmulate them each year, Metarex – I don’t intend to get more but I always do!
having read this, I for some reason just want to decorate right now!
Normally I wait till after Thanksgiving but I guess I have been listening to Christmas music for the past couple of weeks and I am getting in the spirit!
As much as I don’t like seeing Christmas things in the shops too early, it is hard to not get excited by all the tinsel and colour of Christmas displays!
When do you think you’ll give in and start decorating Gaurav?
Decorating the Christmas tree is always a great thing to do and easily one of my favorites. I know my kids really love to help, but like you mentioned we have a pile of decorations and it grows each year! What is really sad is the decorations all have a special meaning to me and my wife so we will never get rid of any of them!
I don’t think that’s sad, Wayne, other than it gets too hard to use them all on one tree as the collection grows!
I originally started collecting one Christmas ornament a year when I was single. But now that I have a 14 year old daughter, I’ve accumulated several boxes of ornaments over the last 14 years. I now have multiple trees, and a couple of small ones for the bedroom and table top. I don’t have the heart to edit my collection, but when my daughter goes to college, I’ll probably give her some of the ornaments and one of the trees. As another poster said, all the ornaments have a special meaning, so I can’t imagine letting any of them go, unless it’s to my daughter.
I love that you have multiple trees to use all those decorations, ACSAPA! And sharing some with your daughter when she’s older is not giving them away at all π
Decorating a gum tree with your leftover christmas decorations is a great idea! We got given loads of decorations last year by someone at our church. My mom, who is a teacher, took them to her primary school and let the children make tinsel figures out of it. It was really nice! I suppose the main thing is to hang on to them until the next christmas is coming!
HI Psmith π Getting kids to make something with left over decorations is great – recycling at its best and keeping the Christmas feel in the class room, too.
I saw on Pinterest that it’s easy to make a fabulous ornament ball Christmas wreath by opening up a wire hanger, shaping it into a hoop, threading various metallic glass ball Christmas ornaments on it, closing the wire loop with pliers, and then tying a ribbon bow at the top for hanging. Instead of spending money on trendy ornament wreaths, you can just use your extra ball ornaments to make your own. I think a wreath made of blue and silver balls would be very pretty.
Good idea – use exsiting decorations to make one larger one is a great way to keep them but not be so overwhemed with them. Thanks for that idea π
My mother is horrible with Christmas decorations. She has so many boxes filled with them in her attic. Takes forever to get them all down and put up. It never ceases to amaze me how fast she can take all the decorations down and get them put up in the attic after Christmas though. I guess it makes sense though… You are so eager and into setting up the decorations so everything looks nice. But, it does not really matter how you take them down. I think it might be an OCD thing on her part. They go up on Thanksgiving and come down on Christmas night, haha.
For financial purposes myself and my fiance have very little in the way of Christmas decorations. We are expecting our first little one in November though. So, it looks like we will have to get around to finding a tree and some decorations. Last year we just went to my mother’s house to celebrate because it was just us. But, it is definitely important to make it special for the little one. π
She pulls the decorations down on Christmas Night? WOW! No way could I do that – partly because I lvoe them up for a bit longer but also I am usually in the mood to relax not tidy at that stage! I envy her getting them down fast though – it seems to take forever when I do it and not just because I wrap the fragile things individually.
Believe me, you will slowly build up a decoaration collection – kids create them every year at school, childcare, kinder, home, etc. The challenge with a crawler/toddler is keeping them off the decorations so having few initially is possibly a good thing π
Maybe your Mum would be happy to share some of her stockpile with you to get you started, streakanime?
I am sure she probably will, she is a pretty giving person like that. Haha. I remember the first time I moved out and lived with a roomie for a while. She bought us a little mini Christmas tree and some small decorations. We ended up getting rid of most of it when we ended up going different ways. But my mother is very superstitious and she said it was bad luck to not have ANY Christmas decor.
And yeah, she is a little OCD when it comes to taking the decor back down. I envy her productivity though. I am never that quick about cleaning something up. π
I’d never heard it was bad luck to have no Christmas decor in the hosue, but it certainly brings happiness (which is its own form of luck!) so it sort of makes sense!