How to Get Rid of Old Christmas Tree Clutter and Holiday Decor

How to get rid of old Christmas tree waste depends on whether it's real or fake. A real one can go out with curbside yard waste, get cut up for your trash cart, or go to a city drop-off site. A fake one gets donated if it still works and hauled off as junk if it doesn't.

The rest of the decor in your garage works the same way: keep it, donate it or toss it.

How to get rid of an old Christmas tree

Start by stripping it bare. Every ornament, hook, light strand and piece of tinsel comes off, and so does the stand.

Quick tip: If the stand still has water in it, pour it into a five-gallon bucket before you tip anything over. Lay an old sheet underneath first, and you can drag the whole thing out with most of the needles on board.

From there you've got three ways to go. The right one depends on your city's rules, how much time you have and what else needs to leave the house.

Option one – break it down for tree trash pickup

This is option one – break it into pieces and let the garbage truck take it. Loppers handle the branches, and a pruning saw gets through the trunk.

Most cities want tree trash cut short enough that the cart lid closes all the way. Check your hauler's rules first, then set it out on your normal trash pickup.

Don't burn it in the fireplace or a fire pit. Dry needles flare up fast and throw sparks, so it's a real safety problem.

Option two – curbside yard waste or a drop-off site

A lot of cities collect real ones for a stretch after New Year's. In many places you can put it out on your regularly scheduled yard waste collection day – just set your unbagged tree at the curb next to your cart with nothing left on it.

Good to know: A bag can't go through a chipper, so a bagged one often gets left at the curb. The same goes for anything with the stand, lights or wire still attached.

If your city doesn't pick them up, you can still use municipal recycling services. Many cities and counties open recycling drop-off locations in January where you can drop your tree off and have it chipped into mulch.

Some areas send you to a yard waste site or recycling centre instead of the landfill, so call ahead and check the current hours.

That's the easiest way to recycle your Christmas tree. The same programs often dispose of natural wreaths and garland too, once any wire is pulled out.

There's one more choice if it's fresh and clean. A local farm with goats or a pond will sometimes take one, so you can donate your undecorated tree instead of chipping it.

Ask first, and don't offer a local farm anything that had flocking, tinsel or spray-on snow. That kind of holiday waste isn't something animals should eat.

Renters sometimes drag one out to their local dumpster. Check with the property manager first, since a lot of complexes want it handled through the city program instead. If you miss every window, cutting it up for trash pickup is the fallback.

Option three – book a pickup service

A pickup service is worth it when it's too big to cut up, you don't have a way to haul it, or it's one piece of a bigger cleanout.

Tree disposal by a hauler makes the most sense when it's riding along with the old fake one, a couple of dead inflatables and whatever else is stacked in the garage.

What moves the cost is how much room everything takes in the truck, how far it has to be carried to the truck, and how much can be donated instead of dumped.

Sorting your holiday decor before junk removal

Holiday decor only comes out once a year, so nobody looks at it closely until it's time to decorate again. By then there's no time to sort it.

You replace the fake one because half its lights went dark, and the old one goes "in the garage for now." A few years later you've got two of them, a box of ornaments from your mom's house and a giant inflatable snowman with a hole in it.

Pull everything out into one spot, like the driveway on a dry fall day. Then make three piles: keep, donate and toss.

Keep is easy. If you used it last year and you'd miss it, it stays. That means family ornaments and anything with real sentimental value.

Donate is for anything that works and that someone else would actually want. Think of artificial Christmas trees with all their branches, ornaments that aren't chipped, or a wreath that still looks like a wreath.

Thrift stores around Boise and Nampa take seasonal stuff, but call ahead if it's a big load.

Toss is where most of it ends up. That's the half-dead light strands, and the fake ones that drop plastic needles every time you brush past them.

Inflatables with torn fabric or a burned-out fan go here too, along with cracked ornaments and anything missing its hook.

Don't overthink this pile. If it's been broken for two seasons and you haven't fixed it, you're not going to.

Heads up: Don't put old string lights in your curbside recycling cart. The wires wrap around the sorting equipment and cause real problems at the recycling facility. Lights either go to a place that takes them as scrap or they go out with the rest of your junk.

The stuff that's harder to get rid of

A few holiday items give people more trouble than they'd expect.

Old artificial trees

A fake one is mostly PVC wrapped around a metal frame. Your recycling cart can't take it, and tree recycling programs won't either, since they only chip real wood.

Working artificial Christmas trees are worth donating if every branch is there and the lights still come on. Once one sheds, sags or has dead sections, it's trash, and the big ones won't fit in a cart.

You can cut one down with bolt cutters, but it's slow, sharp work, so wear gloves.

Yard inflatables and light-up figures

These are bulky, they have motors, and they often get packed away damp, which means mildew. Once the fabric smells musty or has spots on it, it's a toss.

Light-up figures often have batteries inside. Pull those out before anything goes in the trash, since loose batteries can spark in a garbage truck.

Bins and totes

The bins are often worth keeping even when what's inside isn't. Empty them out for garage storage, and let the cracked ones go with everything else.

Haul it yourself or book junk removal?

If your toss pile fits in the back of an SUV, you can probably handle it yourself.

Bag the loose holiday trash, break down what you can, and drive it out to the Ada County landfill. If you're in Canyon County, Pickles Butte is closer.

It stops being worth the trip when the decor is just one corner of a bigger garage cleanout, like an old treadmill sitting behind the fake one. That's when a junk removal crew starts to make sense.

We come out, look at the pile and give you a free estimate based on how much room it'll take up in the truck. How long it takes depends on how much there is and how easy it is to get to.

Before anything goes to the landfill, we pull out what's worth donating.

Keep what matters, donate what works, and let the broken stuff go. Next December you'll actually be able to find the good ornaments.

If you'd rather not haul it yourself, Top Shelf Junk Removal and Demolition can come take a look. Call (208) 593-2877, get a free estimate, and decide from there. No pressure either way.

Frequently asked questions

How long can you keep a real tree in the house?

Real Christmas trees hold up longest when the stand never runs dry and the needles stay soft. Once the branches turn brittle and needles drop when you touch them, take it down, because a dry one is a fire safety risk. If it's still fresh, ask a farm whether they'd take it.

What do I do with old string lights?

Keep them out of the recycling cart, since the wires tangle the sorting machines. Some scrap metal yards take them for the copper, or they can go out with the rest of your junk.

Can you donate an old fake tree?

Often, yes. Thrift stores take a fake one that has all its parts and working lights, but call first, because space gets tight that time of year.

When's the best time to clear out holiday decor?

Related reading: Junk Removal Boise Prices: What Your Quote Actually Includes and Junk Removal in Boise: Old Lawn Mowers, Grills and Yard Tools.

Before December or right after New Year's. Sorting in October or early November keeps you from buying duplicates, and right after New Year's you know exactly what broke.