The Best Holiday Storage, Tested and Reviewed
We may all enjoy the food, mingling, fun, and games of the holidays, but you would be hard-pressed to find someone who claims to enjoy the cleanup. Packing away the artificial tree, baubles, ornaments, lights, and gift wrapping paraphernalia is a whole job unto itself, and unless you’ve got the best holiday storage options in your arsenal, it can turn into a tangled and careless mess fast.
It might not be as fun to shop for as the holiday decor itself, but it will save you a lot of time, hassle, and money in the long run if you’ve equipped yourself with good holiday storage containers to keep everything neat, organized, and ready for next year.
“The main consideration to think through when shopping for the best holiday storage is where you’ll be storing décor during the off-season,” says Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, clutter coach, organizing expert, and the CEO and Founder of A Pleasant Solution. “If you’re storing items during the off season in the garage, attic, or basement, select storage that’s made from heavy-duty airtight plastic. This will ensure that humidity and temperature changes don’t damage items as the seasons shift. If you’re storing items elsewhere in your home, you have a greater range of material choices.”
We tested 16 of the most popular holiday storage options on the market to come up with a list of the best seven, testing each item for durability, convenience, ease of opening/closing, lifting, and carrying, and overall value for money. In addition to Kennedy, we also tapped Jan Arkwright, CEO of Before & After Organizing by Jan LLC, for expert advice on holiday storage shopping.
-
The firm, sheer plastic exterior is flexible enough to pack and unpack ornaments, and its removable dividers accommodate oddly shaped ornaments.
-
It’s not sturdy enough to stack multiple boxes on top of each other.
The reasonably priced Sattiyrch Plastic Christmas Ornament Storage Box is an easy and efficient way to store up to 64 christmas tree baubles. It has a secure hinge lid and handles on the side for easy maneuverability, and even though it’s semi-transparent so you can see what’s inside, there’s a label pocket on the outside so you can write down exactly what’s in the box. It’s festively decorated, too, so you’ll immediately recognize that this container is packing holiday essentials with just a glance.
During testing, we found that it was super easy to add and remove the ornaments from the box—the basic shape and perfectly fitting cardboard dividers made it easy to get the ornaments out and add them to the box. The dividers were easy to pull apart in case you needed to store longer ornaments, although it would be hard to accommodate large ornaments that were too tall for the level of the container (there are four levels separated by one large piece of cardboard).
As it's on the smaller side, the two handles made it easy to carry the container and lift it overhead (although 64 is not enough ornaments to make the box particularly heavy). The material is durable and thick enough to protect from moisture, dust, and bugs; the plastic feels very sturdy and the zipper is protected, so it closes very securely. The box felt sturdy when we were packing it, too, as the sides held up nicely, stood on their own, and didn’t feel like they would rip.
Price at time of publish: $10
Dimensions: 12 by 12 by 12 inches | Material: Plastic | Capacity: Up to 64 ornaments