How to Store Christmas Lights Without a Tangled Mess

This article will teach you how to store Christmas lights without a tangled mess. This method is quick, simple and requires no extra equipment.

There is much debate as to when Christmas lights should be taken down for the season. Some people remove them as soon as the holiday is over. Others leave them up far into January. I firmly believe that one of the reasons many people procrastinate on taking down all of those strings of lights is they know they will be left with a tangled mess.

For years I struggled on how to wrap/fold and store my Christmas lights after the season. I usually just got frustrated and ended up putting the lights in a box as “neatly” as I could manage. However, when Christmas would roll around the next year I would find myself frustrated trying to untangle strings of lights.

What if I told you that there is a way to store your lights every year as if you just pulled them out of the box brand new? The storage method that I am going to share requires no extra equipment, can be done in less than five minutes and will result in no more tangles.

What do you need?

This method requires no extras such as cardboard, hangers or light rollers. All you need is your string of lights.

How do you begin?

Before you begin folding your lights for storage you want to make sure you start at the correct end of the light strand. This folding method works best when you start with the female end of the strand. See picture below.

How do you fold the light strand?

You honestly won’t believe how simple this process truly is. Once you do it yourself you will be shocked you never stored your lights this way before. Here are the simple instructions.

Hold the light strand in your hand and fold with one light pointing upwards and then the next light pointing downwards. You might have to adjust the strand slightly as you are folding so that the strand will lay more easily in your hand. You can watch the video below for a better understanding of the process.

The most challenging part of the whole process is holding the completed strand in your hand if your hands are small.

How to Store the Light Strand

After you have folded all of the lights you can wrap the remaining wire of the strand around the lights to hold the bundle in place. Connect the male end of the strand to the female and you will have a neat and tidy light bundle.

There you have it. The most simple way to store Christmas lights without a tangled mess. I promise, removing your Christmas lights will never be the same again. Comment below and let me know how this method worked for you.