Fall is the best time to clear out holiday decorations, because every bin is already down and open. Keep what goes up every year, offer clean and working pieces to a donation store, pull the batteries out of anything animated, and let the rest go. A crew can carry the bins, the old artificial tree and the yard inflatables out together.
Most houses have a decoration shelf. It started as two bins. Then there was a second tree, a yard display that went up once, the light strings that stopped working halfway down the roofline, and the boxes everything came in, saved in case it ever had to go back. By the time the kids are grown, that shelf can take up a whole wall of the garage or a good part of the attic floor.
Why fall is the time to sort it
Because it is the only time of year the bins are open. In January everything goes back up fast, in whatever bin is closest, because the house needs to be put back together. In October and November the bins are coming down one at a time and you are already looking inside them.
That makes it the easiest point in the year to make a decision about each one. If a bin comes down, gets opened, and nothing in it goes up on the house, that is your answer. Set it aside instead of putting it back.
A few signs a piece has had its last season:
- It has not gone up in two or three years. If it stayed in the bin through the last few holidays, it is storage, not decoration.
- It is the second or third of the same thing. Two artificial trees, three nativity sets, a box of stockings for people who now hang their own.
- It is broken and has been waiting to be fixed. The light-up reindeer with one dead leg, the wreath missing half its picks.
- It came from a house you do not live in anymore. Decorations inherited after a parent moved or passed often get stored out of loyalty rather than use.
That last one deserves time. If you are sorting decorations that belonged to a parent, there is no wrong pace for it. Keep the pieces that mean something, and let the rest go when you are ready.
Light strings, batteries and the animated pieces
This is the part to handle before anything goes in a pile.
Pull the batteries. Light-up figures, battery candles, music boxes and animated displays often still have batteries inside from last year. The EPA's page on used household batteries notes that batteries can hold enough energy to injure or start fires even when they appear to be discharged, and that the right disposal depends on the type. Take them out, keep them together, and drop them at your city's program. Plano's household chemical collection is one example, and we will point you to yours.
Sort the light strings. Strings that still light all the way through can go to a donation store. Strings with dead sections, frayed wire or cracked sockets are not worth passing on to someone else. Some cities and stores run holiday light collections during the season, so check what is near you if you have a big tangle of them.
Anything with a cord counts as electronics. Light-up yard figures, projector lights and animated displays with a motor inside are small electronics. The EPA's electronics donation and recycling guidance makes the case for donating what still works and recycling what does not, rather than letting it sit.
Fog machine fluid, spray snow, glitter spray and the leftover can of paint from a yard-sign project do not go on our truck. Those go to household chemical collection too.
Open every bin before it leaves the house. Decoration bins collect more than decorations. Family photos, keepsake ornaments with a name and year on them, and envelopes of old cards end up tucked between the tissue paper. Look through each one before it is set out for us.
Can holiday decorations be donated
Often, if they are clean, complete and working. Habitat for Humanity ReStores accept donations of furniture, appliances, housewares and building materials, and the site notes that it is important to call your ReStore and confirm before you bring things in. Seasonal items are the kind of thing each store decides for itself, so a quick call saves a wasted trip.
What usually has a chance: artificial trees that still have every branch and a working stand, sets of ornaments in their boxes, wreaths and garlands in good shape, and serving pieces that only came out for the holidays. What usually does not: anything broken, faded, mildewed from a hot attic, or missing parts.
Our guide to donating furniture in DFW covers how donation centers tend to decide, and the same rule holds here. If it would not go up on your own house, a store will probably not take it either.
What we haul from a decoration shelf
On a typical decoration cleanout, we take:
- plastic storage bins, full or empty, and the shelving units they sat on
- artificial trees, pre-lit or not, with or without the original box
- yard inflatables and their blowers, once they are unplugged and folded down
- light-up yard figures, wire frames and plastic lawn pieces
- wreaths, garlands, tree skirts, stockings and tabletop decorations
- the stack of empty boxes saved for returns that are never going to happen
The shelving is often the heavier half of the job. Metal and particleboard units that held the bins for years come apart or come out whole, the same as shelving and furniture we carry out of homes in The Colony and everywhere else we go.
Most of these calls are not only about decorations. The decoration shelf is usually one wall of a garage that needs clearing for other reasons, or one corner of an attic. Our garage cleanout checklist walks through sorting the rest of the garage the same way, and our post on attic cleanouts covers getting things down a pull-down ladder in the heat, which is where a lot of decoration bins live. If the bins are in a rented unit, our storage unit junk removal guide covers that version.
It is common in long-owned houses with years of seasons stacked up, like an original-owner garage in Wylie that has been filling for years. If the reason for the cleanout is company coming, our post on getting the guest room ready before the holidays picks up where this one stops.
Where it goes after we load it: usable items go to local donation partners, metal goes to recyclers, and our stated goal is to keep more than half of every load out of the landfill.
How the pickup runs
Send us a photo of what is going and where it is sitting: the garage shelf, the attic, a closet under the stairs. Tell us if anything is still up in the attic so the crew plans to bring it down.
A crew looks at what you have and gives you a firm number before anything is loaded. The quote is the bill, and disposal is included. We are affordable and priced fair, based on how much there is to take. You point, we carry, we sweep. These are our own crews, not gig labor.
Call before noon and same afternoon is typical across the northern suburbs. When the decoration shelf is sorted, tell us what needs to go, or read more about how our garage cleanouts work.
Frequently asked questions
Do you take old artificial Christmas trees?
Yes, pre-lit or not, boxed or loose. If the tree still has every branch and a working stand, call a donation store first, since some will take one in good shape.
Will you haul yard inflatables and light-up figures?
Yes. Unplug them, fold the inflatables down if you can, and take out any batteries. We carry them out with the rest of the load.
What do I do with the batteries from decorations?
Take them out before the pickup and keep them together. Batteries go to your city's household chemical or battery drop-off program, not in the truck.
Can you bring decoration bins down from the attic?
Yes. Tell us they are up there when you send the photo, and the crew plans to bring them down the ladder.
Do you take the plastic storage bins too?
Yes, full or empty, along with the shelving they sat on if that is going as well.
The decorations that go up every year are the ones worth the shelf space. The rest can leave before the season starts.
