Organize Your Halloween Decor in 6 Steps

Are you drowning in Halloween decor? This is the perfect time of year to pare things down and get organized. Here are some tips to help you do it.

I have a love/hate relationship with holidays – especially Halloween.

It’s fun to celebrate, but I hate all the stuff that comes along with it.

If you, too, spend more time setting up and taking down Halloween than you actually spend enjoying it – then these tips are for you!

1. Commit to Getting Rid of Halloween Decorations that You Don’t Like or Need

The first step to paring down your Halloween decor is to actually commit to the process.

Early October is the best time to do this.

You will easily be able to find lots of “takers” for the things you want to discard.

Set up a timeline and actually block out some time on your calendar to get the work done.

2. Gather All of Your Halloween Decor in One Place

We had 3 huge tubs of everything Halloween in our attic.

I wrestled these tubs downstairs to a place where I could spread out the contents and make a quick decision about each item.

3. Get Your Supplies In Order

I grabbed a few empty trash bags – one for trash and one to fill with things to donate.

Also have a pad of sticky notes and marker handy.

4. Designate Space for These 3 Areas

As you go through your Halloween decorations you will need to separate all the stuff into 5 piles (or more if you have more categories that apply to you).

• Keep
• Toss
• Donate
• Give to someone you know
• Use once more then donate

Write these titles on a sticky not and designate a spot in your work area for each pile.

5. Process Your Halloween Decor

Now comes the fun part.

Go through each item in your Halloween decor boxes and make a decision for each one.

Things to Keep

In the words of Marie Kondo – keep the the things that “bring you joy”.

If you love a certain item and plan to use it year after year – then put it in your keep pile.

If you have old Halloween costumes that your older children may have outgrown but may fit a younger child in the future – then keep it.

Keep the things that are useful – pumpkin carving tools, LED lights, etc.

Things to Toss

Get rid of things that are broken or “single” (odd items that belonged to a costume that you no longer have etc).

Things that you have not used in several years that are not in good enough shape to donate.

Things to Donate

Halloween costumes that are too small or that you are unlikely to use again.

Anything that you don’t like but are holding on to because, well, it could be useful “someday”.

Let’s face it – someday may never come.

In the meantime, you are using valuable space in your home and wasting your mental and physical energy every single year struggling with decision of whether you should get rid of it.

Stop that!

Give yourself permission to get rid of what you don’t want.

Offer the Good Stuff to People You Know

I say this with reservation – because the last thing you should do is offload your junk onto someone else.

However the situation is somewhat different when it comes to Halloween decor.

Some people appreciate the offer of a gently used costume or a seasonal item that they can just toss, donate, or store after the holiday.

When I offer someone something that I no longer need – I make sure they know the following:

• I won’t be offended if they say – no they don’t want it.
• If they want to try it on or go through a bag of stuff – they are free to take what they want and give the rest back to me – so they don’t bear the burden of getting rid of my junk
• I don’t need the thing (whatever I am offering them) back – so once they take it, I don’t mind if they toss, donate, give it away, or even ruin it. They are free to do what they want with it.

Use Once More Then Donate

As you go through your boxes of Halloween decorations, you may come across things that are a bit nostalgic but that you really don’t want anymore.

If you are doing this organization exercise in October, then go ahead and give those items one last hurrah.

Use them for this coming Halloween and then instead of packing them away for next year, just donate them when you are done.

6. Create A Bin for the Halloween Decor You Want to Keep

Now let’s circle back to your first pile – Halloween Decorations To Keep.

Before you start decorating your home for the holiday, take a close look at this pile and find a bin or two that will fit this pile comfortably.

Label these bins with a sticky note or use your Cricut machine to cut out a title in some removable vinyl.

Now you have a place to collect and pack away all of your Halloween decor until next year.

Be sure to put your items to donate in one clean trash bag and the items you want to toss into another.

6 Easy Steps to Halloween Organization

Wasn’t that easy?

You can organize your Halloween stuff by:

1. blocking out some time to do the work,
2. gathering up all your Halloween stuff,
3. grabbing a few supplies,
4. creating piles to sort your Halloween items into,
5. actually processing your Halloween decor,
6. and creating designated storage for the items you want to keep.

And one word of warning – be very selective about what you buy this season!

You don’t want to amass more than you have space for.

Happy Halloween!