How We Track and Store Your Holiday Decor

When the season ends, the lights on Main Street go dark. Our crews come back, take down every garland, pole mount, and tree, load the trucks, and drive away. For the next eleven months, you won’t see your display at all.

That’s a lot of trust to hand a vendor. Your holiday display is one of the most visible things your town or property does all year, and it spends most of that year in someone else’s building. So it’s no surprise that one of the best questions we heard this summer was a simple one: when you store our decor, how do you know which pieces are ours?

We’ve been decorating downtowns, shopping centers, parks, and attractions since 1921, and storage is one of the parts of the job we take most seriously. This is how it works, from the day your display comes down to the day it goes back up.

Why “Where Does My Decor Go?” Is the Right Question to Ask

A commercial holiday display isn’t a one-season purchase. Most of our customers build theirs over years, adding a centerpiece one season and a run of pole mounts the next, often through a multi-year purchase or lease program. By the time a display is complete, it’s a real asset, and residents, shoppers, and visitors notice when a piece goes missing.

Commercial-grade decor is built to last. Steel frames, powder-coated finishes, fiberglass, and LED lighting are made for season after season outdoors. Whether they actually get there depends mostly on what happens between seasons: how each piece is packed, where it’s kept, and whether anyone looks it over before it goes back up.

That’s why this question is worth asking any vendor before you sign. If they can’t tell you where your decor is and what shape it’s in, that tells you a lot about the rest of their service. Read more about Red Flags When Choosing a Commercial Holiday Decor Vendor. 

Step 1: Takedown and Check-In

At the end of the season, our White Glove crews come back to take everything down safely, mounting hardware included. Nothing is left on your poles, buildings or grounds.

Before anything goes on a truck, every piece is accounted for. That check starts at installation: once your display is up, our crews photograph each piece and note exactly where it’s installed. At takedown, crews check every piece against that record, so a missing piece is flagged right away, and they note any wear or damage that needs refurbishing or replacement.

Back at our warehouse, your items are tagged, binned and cataloged in our ERP system, so we know exactly where each one is at any time.

Step 2: How We Know What’s Yours

This is the heart of the question, and the answer is simple. Holiday Outdoor Decor tracks every display with two systems that run across all of our warehouses. Our project management software holds the photos and installation locations for each piece. Our ERP system holds your inventory, tied to your job number, so your decor is never mixed up with anyone else’s.

Displays share racking in our warehouses, but every piece is tracked on its own by tag and bin, so we can locate any one of your pieces at any time.

If you ever want to know exactly what we’re holding for you, just ask. You can request an inventory list at any time. We also send an updated quote each year to confirm your job for the coming season, and it lists what we’re holding and anything that needs to change.

Step 3: Where Your Display Lives for Eleven Months

Once it’s checked in, your decor is packed, transported, and held until next season in one of our four warehouses: Allentown, Pennsylvania; Oswego, Illinois; and Tavares and Pompano Beach, Florida. Together they hold 100,000 sq. ft. of storage, and every one of them is climate-controlled. Heat, humidity and moisture age decor faster than anything else, which is why where it sits for most of the year matters as much as how it’s built.

For Florida customers, hurricane season is part of the plan. Our Tavares warehouse, the largest of the four, holds most of the decor for our jobs across the state. It carries a Category 5 hurricane rating, meaning the building is engineered to withstand sustained winds of 157 mph or higher, along with the structural loads and flying debris that come with the most severe storms.

Holiday Outdoor Decor carries its own insurance and liability coverage, and your decor is covered the whole time it’s in our care. If a piece is damaged while we have it, we replace it. Once a piece is installed on your property, it falls under your own insurance.

Step 4: Off-Season Inspection and Refurbishing

Storage isn’t just shelf time. Post-season refurbishing is part of our White Glove Program, and it’s where a lot of a display’s lifespan is won. 

After takedown, your display goes into a refurbishment schedule that runs until the next season. Standard work includes replacing bulbs, correcting ornament discoloration, touching up cosmetic scuffs and scratches, and cleaning garland and bows.

Refurbishing is included in our comprehensive White Glove Program. Some customers choose storage and installation only, so ask your project manager if you’re not sure what your plan covers. Before any large repair or replacement, we talk it through with you first. If a piece has worn beyond what we can refurbish, we’ll let you know and ask whether you’d like to replace it. 

Decor also has a natural life cycle, so when we see a piece nearing the end of its useful life, we’ll ask whether you’d like to replace or upgrade it.

Step 5: Back Up, Exactly the Way You Approved It

When the season comes back around, your display comes out of storage, and our crews install it to the layout you approved, so it looks as good as it did last year. 

Before we install each year, we review the plan with you to confirm the layout and the decorations and to talk through any replacements or upgrades.

It’s also the right moment to think about what comes next. Our biggest discount of the year, 35% off, runs during the early-order window from January to February, which makes it the best time to add a new centerpiece or extend your display down another block. 

Owned or Leased, the Same Care

Not every customer buys their display outright. Our lease program puts large-scale commercial decor within reach without the upfront purchase, with service included. Learn more about our lease program.

Leased decor is stored, tracked and cared for the same way as owned decor. The one difference is flexibility: lease customers can swap pieces out. Unless you ask for a swap, we catalog and prepare your display based on the previous year’s installation.

Five Questions to Ask Any Vendor About Storage

Whether you work with us or someone else, these are the questions we’d ask before handing over a display:

1. How will my decor be identified, and can I see a list of what you’re holding?
2. Is storage climate-controlled at every location?
3. Who is responsible if a piece is damaged while it’s in your care?
4. What does off-season refurbishing include, and will you ask me before charging for a repair?
5. Will my display go back up to the same layout next season?

We’re glad to answer every one of them. If a vendor can’t, that’s worth knowing now rather than next December. Read more on What to Require From Your Commercial Holiday Decor Vendor.

Outside Our White Glove Service Area?

Complete White Glove Service is available across the Northeast, Midwest, and Florida. Outside those areas, we work with partner teams across the country who can help. Products ship nationwide, and our team can advise on layout and installation anywhere in the country. If you store your own display, we’re happy to share how we pack and handle ours so yours lasts just as long.

Let Us Carry the Whole Season

From the first rendering to the last box on the shelf, our White Glove team handles every step, so your team doesn’t have to. Tell us about your space, and we’ll show you what a full season with Holiday Outdoor Decor looks like.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Kelsey Fisher