Dealing with insurance on nontagled Christmas lights

Ahh, the holidays!  The cheer, the joy, the anticipation and the stress of how to deal with the lights that you strung after you're finished.  Well, here is a few tips for securing that your Christmas lights will be left untangled for the next years festivities.  You should be sure to follow these instructional ideas to prevent those messy tangled light cords and the frustration that they cause.  When you buy your ornaments, decorations, garland, and wrapping paper, be sure to keep the boxes in an organized storage box or boxes.  These will be extremely important and vital to allowing you to reuse your decorations for years to come.  The ornaments are usually dainty and fragile, so be sure to handle them with care so as not to cause them to break.  Place very fragile ornaments out of the reach of children who seem to be drawn to their shinyness and can't keep from wanting to handle them.

When placing your decorations upon your holiday tree, remember that it is best to start with the strings of lights that you want on it to begin with.  Once you have intertwined the stands without crossing, tangling, or knotting them it will be time to follow up with the other decorative items.  After the strands of lights, check again to insure that they function as they should then start from the top of the tree with the fragile glass ornaments then work your way down to the bottom of your holiday tree.  Be sure to cover the entire circumference of the tree, that is to go around the entire tree and alternate branches with a variety of decorative objects to ensure uniqueness or a theme you may have in mind.  An example of themes would be an all crystal ornament type, or red, white, and blue theme, or your favorite holiday color theme. 

All of the decorations that can be placed upon your tree are carefully hung, now you can wrap the garland that you selected in a circular downward fashion from the top to the bottom of your tree.  If you wish, at this time you can take tiny amounts of tinsle and toss them to make your tree seem frosted with sparkle.  Be cautious not to overdo the tinsle it can drown your tree's pizazz and ruin the overall look of the effect you wanted to present.  At this point, it is time for the festive tree topping ritual where a family member is chosen to take the tree topper and place in into postion.  Great camera opportunity to capture this decorative and festive moment on film. 

The holidays do have to come to an end, and at that time, you should carefully take each ornament and place it back into the box holder from where it came.  Then you can wrap the garland around the wrapping paper rolls that you have kept for this reason.  The next and most important step is to prepare an empty wrapping paper roll for your strand of lights.  Take a pair of scissors and cut a small slit in one end of the empty paper roll to have a start lock in place for the lights.  Carefully, take the lights off the tree when all the other decorations have been removed and have someone else assist you.  They will take the end of the strand of lights and put the end into the slit that you had cut.  Have them slowly wrap the lights tightly around the paper roll similar to a metal spring coil.  Another explanation would be to tightly coil the strand around the paper roll, which usually takes the entire length and tuck the other end into the center hole of the roll. 

Continue to roll each individual strand in this method, and then place each on into a storage box, secure the rolls with paper towels, newspapers, or old rags to prevent breaking of the bulbs on the strands.  Personally, I keep my decorations and strands in a storage container where I can view the contents, but you may also place tape on each storage container to allow for proper identification and organization.  The minutes it takes to wind your strands on wrapping paper rolls is totally worth the effort to avoid the hours of attempting to untangle them.