Woman's 'smart' Christmas lights hack goes viral: 'Love it'

Untangling Christmas lights has to be the biggest downside of putting up the Christmas tree.

And now that December is upon us, it’s a struggle plenty of people are going through as they pull out their decorations from last year.

But one woman’s inexpensive fuss-free idea for storing Christmas lights has gone viral after she shared it on social media.

Taking to a popular Christmas group, the woman revealed her handy hack for compactly storing Christmas lights that has been called “absolutely brilliant”.

“How I store my Christmas lights,” she wrote alongside a picture of her lights tightly wrapped around a plastic coathanger.

“I stumbled across this idea a few years back and it saves my sanity every year.”

Christmas lights on coathanger
Her christmas lights storage hack is not only simple but completely fuss-free. Source: Facebook.

Why it works so well

The coat hanger she uses specifically has two open sections at each end which allows the lights to slot in perfectly as you wrap them around it for storage.

It works equally as well when unravelling the lights straight onto the tree.

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Her simple solution was quickly labelled “an amazing idea” by hundreds of people who said they’d made lots of failed attempts to untangle their lights.

“This is so smart! I had the untangling fight on the weekend,” one person said.

“Amazing. If only I knew a simple coat hanger could’ve solved all the frustration from untangling the lights over the weekend. Guess what we will be doing when the lights come down,” added another.

“Love it! Hubby & I were trying to come up with ideas for this same predicament today, the best we got was a 1.25ltr soft drink bottle. Great better idea!” commented a third.

Close up image of woman's hand in sweater decorating christmas tree with bubblers. Woman’s hand in stylish sweater decorating christmas tree close up. Merry christmas and happy New Year concept. Space for text.
This woman's handy hack makes decorating the tree a breeze without any tangled lights. Source: Getty Images.

Her extremely simple coat hanger hack was surprisingly wildly popular and racked up more than 3.4K likes and over 500 comments in a matter of days.

Many people said they hadn’t thought of using a coat hanger, but had tried pieces of cardboard and plastic bottles.

The woman was so shocked at all the praise she received for her hack, she edited her post, adding: “I'm glad so many of you like this idea. Thank you for all the lovely comments, they made my day.”

Others share their handy Christmas tips

Meanwhile, others decided to share their best Christmas hacks and we’ve got to say, they were pretty good tips!

“We do the same with a strip of cardboard. Wind it around, cut some slits in the end to hold each end. Sanity saver,” one person wrote.

She added:“Bonus hack! Hide all the Chrissy presents in the Christmas tree box when you put the Christmas tree up. Kids never think to look there.”

Christmas lights hack
Others shared their Christmas lights storage hacks from cable reels to cardboard cylinders. Source: Facebook.

“I buy my lights in those plastic boxes with clip-on lids from Bunnings so it’s easy storage but this is a good idea,” added another.

Others suggested using a fishing line canister or asking an electrician for their old cable rolls to store lights around.

So, when it’s time to take down the tree - you know what to keep on hand - the humble coat hanger!

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