When you opened your storage boxes filled with Christmas decorations, did you find bits and pieces of broken light bulbs, ornaments, and cherished keepsakes? Many of us did, simply because we just didn't wrap them properly, or worse yet, we accidentally dropped the storage container.

RealSimple has some great Holiday decoration storage tricks for us, including how to store our precious ornaments and breakable light bulbs. The ideas include: Shredding paper to cushion fragile items, using a leg of pantyhose to keep gift wrap from being destroyed, items to store last when you need them first next year, and how to store your food based decorations so Fido can't get at them.

Every year, my mother always seemed to break a few decorations. Luckily, the ones that she brought from Germany almost 50 years ago somehow stay intact year after year. With the storage ideas from realsimple.com, I can now pass them along to my daughter and teach her about her German heritage.

[via:Lifehacker]