Christmas Storage With Aldi
Like clockwork, as soon as Christmas is over, Aldi starts rolling out the post-Christmas storage options in the Special Buy section. (That, and all the healthy food in advance of everyone making New Year’s Resolutions.) Here’s a roundup of some of their stuff:
Easy Home Christmas Tree Storage Box
Cost: $22.99
This large hard plastic box measures 52.8″ long, 20.8″ wide, and 14″ deep. It comes with a white plastic bin and a red plastic lid. The white plastic bin has a pair of wheels at one end. The red plastic lid has clips on it that allows it to fasten to the bin. At the time of this post, it costs about $23.
We’ve found the Easy Home Christmas Tree Storage Box to be adequate, if a bit of a hassle. At about 4 1/2 feet long, it is large enough to store our 6 1/2 foot tree; we’re not sure how viable this box would be for trees a lot larger than that, though. The clips on the lid don’t always stay latched when hauling the box up or down stairs with a tree inside, so be careful. Also, be aware that the box is brittle and will break rather than bend; at one point we accidentally put a fair amount of weight on the lid (someone’s foot and part of their weight trying to get around it) and it cracked pretty significantly. The wheels on the bin seem to do fine; they are tracked to move over carpet and appear to do that well.
Easy Home Ornament Storage or Easy Home Gift Wrap Storage
Cost: $6.99
The Easy Home Ornament Storage and Easy Home Gift Wrap Storage are very similar in design to each other, the only differences being the dimensions. The Easy Home Ornament Storage is 30″ long, 17″ wide, and 5″ deep, while the Easy Home Gift Wrap Storage is longer, and a little less wide and deep: 40.5″ long, 13.5″ wide, and 4.5″ deep. Both are soft fabric — reinforced on the sides with a cardboard inner layer — with a zipper lid and handles on the outside for carrying. At the time of this post, both went for $7.
In our experience, these storage boxes do what they advertise. The dimensions are good for what they’re needed for; the Gift Wrap Storage, for example, is just the right length for the long rolls of wrapping paper that we have at the end of the holiday season.
Easy Home Wreath Storage Box
Cost: $4.99
The Easy Home Wreath Storage Box is a hard plastic bowl-shaped thing that measures 26.38″ in diameter across the handles, 7″ deep, and 24.5″ in diameter across the non-handled sides. It claims to hold wreaths up to 24″ (2 feet) wide and costs $5 at the time of this post.
We have absolutely no experience with this box (and we don’t think we really need one), but we think it would take some real effort to mess it up. If you have one, and you have some insight, feel free to share in the comments.
Easy Home Organizational Storage Box
Cost: $3.99
This is not advertised strictly as a Christmas storage box, but it is advertised the same week as other Christmas storage options and shows pictures showing Christmas stuff … so you get the hint. It measures 11.6″ x 11.5″ x 7″ and comes in either a white handle / clip trim or cranberry. It runs $4 at the time of this post. We haven’t tested it, so we can’t speak to the clip strength or overall durability of the box; if you have, let us know in the comments.
The Verdict:
Aldi’s storage solutions get the job done at a cheap price, although some of them are better than others. We generally like the Easy Home Ornament Storage and Easy Home Gift Wrap Storage, as they are well-designed and easy to use. We’re a little less enthusiastic about the Easy Home Christmas Tree Storage Box, which, while adequate, has less-than-ideal latches and may be too small for really large trees. We have no experience at all with the Easy Home Wreath Storage Box or Easy Home Organizational Storage Box, although we assume they do what they’re supposed to do.