Two years ago I pulled my Christmas decorations out of the attic and spent the first hour of the holiday season untangling lights with a rage usually reserved for highway traffic. Broken ornaments. Missing hooks. I found a squirrel nest in the wreath box. I decided I was done doing this to myself every year.

Here is the system I built, tested across two holiday seasons now. It takes an extra thirty minutes during takedown but saves hours of frustration next year.

Lights: Wrap, Do Not Ball

Never—and I mean never—ball up string lights and toss them in a box. Wrap them around a piece of cardboard cut from an Amazon box. Make a slit at one end to hold the plug, then wrap the strand flat around the cardboard, securing the other end in another slit. Label the cardboard with where the lights go: “tree,” “porch,” “mantle.”

Last year I unwrapped my porch lights in thirty seconds flat. The year before: forty-five minutes of untangling. This is not about organization. This is about preserving your holiday spirit.

Ornaments: Egg Cartons Are Free

Start saving egg cartons in October. Each compartment holds one standard ornament perfectly. Stack them in a plastic bin. For larger ornaments, cut the dividers out of wine boxes or use disposable cups nested in a bin. Bubble wrap is expensive and creates a ton of plastic waste. Egg cartons are free and work better.

Wreaths: Hang Them in Garment Bags

Those clear plastic garment bags that come with dry cleaning? Slide a wreath in, zip it up, and hang it on a closet rod. The bag keeps dust off, prevents crushing, and the wreath holds its shape because gravity is doing the work instead of a cardboard box pressing down on it.

I also label the outside of every bin with a Sharpie: what is inside, which room it goes to, and whether it goes up first or last. When I pull everything down next November, I know exactly what goes where without opening a single box.

The squirrel nest has not returned. I count that as a win.