How To Pack Holiday Decorations For A Move

December 1, 2021

If you are relocating to a new home or apartment soon, you’ve likely begun walking around your current residence and making a mental — or maybe even a physical — inventory of your belongings to get an idea of the number and type of packing boxes you’ll need.

In every household, there are usually a few items that make their owners wonder about the best ways to pack them. If you would like to learn how to pack Christmas ornaments for moving, keep reading. We have tips for storing breakable Christmas ornaments and other fragile items.

Unpack

It might seem counter-intuitive to unpack all your favorite holiday decor and ornaments only to pack them again — but that’s exactly what you should do. The reason you need to re-pack your holiday decorations is because, when you stored them last season, you might not have realized you would be moving to a new home.

You probably packed your ornaments well enough for them to stay safe in your basement or attic for 11 months. However, are you certain they are wrapped and boxed well enough to endure being carried outside to a truck, placed in a stack with other cartons, driven miles (or even hundreds of miles) to a new house, unloaded, carried and stacked once more? That’s a lot of shuffling and shifting for a fragile Christmas ornament to endure. That’s why you might want to carve a couple hours out of your packing schedule to unbox and repack your sentimental holiday decorations.

Cardboard or Plastic?

Whether you use cardboard boxes or plastic totes to store your Christmas decorations in your home each year is a matter of personal preference and storage space. However, for a move to a new residence, you might want to consider using plastic totes. That’s because plastic containers can better protect your homemade and heirloom Christmas decor items from rain, snow and other wet weather conditions that can occur during transit.

How to Pack Ornaments

Every household has different types of Christmas ornaments. In homes with small children or pets, it’s likely that most — if not all — of the ornaments are soft and non-breakable. Many people upcycle their family’s annual Christmas photos into holiday decorations. For these non-breakable ornaments, your biggest concern is keeping them dry, so place them in plastic sandwich bags. You can also use soft decor items as packing for fragile ornaments.

Your antique and heirloom ornaments should be wrapped individually. Use plain, white tissue paper, craft paper or blank, unprinted newspaper, which is called newsprint. (Avoid using colored tissue paper because the dyes might transfer to your ornaments. On a similar note, the black ink used on newspaper can rub off and smudge your ornaments.)

Wrap each ornament individually with bubble wrap. Once your ornaments are wrapped well, place each into a separate plastic baggie. That way, if any glass ornaments should break while in transit, the plastic bag will keep the broken pieces contained. Crumple craft paper or newsprint and use it to stuff the empty spaces in the boxes to keep the contents from shifting while in transit. Remember to label each box.

How to Pack Christmas Decorations

Pay your local home-organization store a visit. There, you will find plastic totes designed especially for holding rolls of wrapping paper and keeping them wrinkle-free. While you’re there, look for large, shallow totes and boxes that will store your Christmas wreath and ornament boxes with cardboard dividers.

You can shop online and purchase craft paper, plain newsprint and bubble wrap in bulk, but you can also upcycle items you might already have around the house and use them for ornament storage and organization:

• Instead of purchasing new bubble wrap, upcycle the bubble wrap and padded envelopes that you received in the mail when shopping online.
• Use cardboard carriers from six-packs of bottled beer to organize ornaments. Line the compartments with coffee filters.
• To hold small ornaments, use egg cartons, pulp fiber egg flats or beverage trays from fast food restaurants.
• Garment bags can hold wreaths and even come with a hook for hanging.
• Cartons for wine incorporate practically the same type of dividers as ornament boxes. Ask your local grocer or liquor store for extra boxes.
• Hanging shoe organizers are perfect for storing just about everything.
• While packing the other rooms in your house for the move, you may discover plenty of old T-shirts or towels that you no longer want or need. Use them as padding for the boxes containing your delicate ornaments and other fragile belongings.

You might not have expected to move to a new apartment or house during the winter months, but imagine how wonderful your favorite Christmas decorations will look in your new home.

No matter what time of year you plan to relocate, New City Moving is ready to help with your local or long-distance move. We have a team of more than 200 relocation experts and a fleet of 70 moving trucks to get you on your way home. Contact us for a free packing, moving or storage estimate.