After Halloween: Pack Up the Decor and Sort the Candy

The costumes are off, the porch light is back to normal, and somewhere in the living room there is a heap of candy, a tangle of fake cobweb, and a pumpkin that has seen better days. The day after Halloween is the easiest cleanup of the whole fall season — as long as you do it in one pass instead of five. Here is a simple order of operations that clears the house and leaves you a little more ready for the holidays ahead.

Start with the candy

Candy is the thing most likely to still be sitting out next week, so handle it first. Pile it all in one place, pull out anything nobody in the house will actually eat, and split the rest into bags.

• Make a "this week" bag and a "later" bag so the whole haul doesn't vanish in three days.
• Keep chocolate separate from anything chewy or sticky.
• Seal every bag before it goes in a cupboard, or it turns stale and crumbly.

A set of bag sealing clips makes the last step quick: fold the bag over once, slide the clip across, and air and moisture stay out. They are color-coded in four sizes, so the small ones handle a fistful of fun-size bars and the large ones close a family-size bag. They are freezer safe and dishwasher safe, with no sharp edges and no metal springs — worth knowing if the kids are the ones doing the sorting.

Pack the decorations so next October is easier

This is the step that pays you back in a year. Instead of sweeping everything into one bag, sort as you pack:

• Group by where it lives: porch, front door, windows, table.
• Wrap anything breakable in a dish towel you already own.
• Coil light strings loosely rather than winding them tight.
• Throw out burnt tea lights and dead batteries now, not next fall.

A few Foldable Storage Boxes work well for this. Each one is 13 by 9 by 9 inches, made of sturdy plastic, and folds down flat when it's empty, so the boxes don't become their own storage problem in the off-season. One box per zone, labeled on the side with masking tape, and next Halloween starts with carrying boxes to the porch instead of untangling a bin.

Stack it where it won't be underfoot

Seasonal bins tend to end up in whatever corner is closest, which is usually the corner you need in December. If your decorations share a closet with blankets and spare bedding, a stackable storage container keeps the shelf tidy: it holds its shape on a steel frame, stacks without slumping, and folds flat when you're not using it. It comes in three sizes — 24, 66 and 100 liters — so you can match the box to the shelf instead of the other way around.

Finish with one quick sweep

Walk the yard and the porch once in daylight. Candy wrappers, snapped glow sticks and stray decorations are much easier to spot now than after the first rain. Pull the pumpkins before they collapse, shake out the doormat, and put the regular bulb back in the porch light.

Twenty minutes of this today and November starts with a clear table. Browse the rest of our home and kitchen essentials when you're ready to get the house set for the holidays.