Maintaining Safe and Clean Holiday Decorations

Holiday decorations should bring a smile to your face. Due to a lack of cleaning, though, they far too often bring sneezes, red eyes, or shocked looks of revulsion. When you don’t take care of your string lights, wreaths, and snow globes, they begin to collect organic growths like algae, mold, or mildew.
To keep your winter holiday decorations clean and safe this season, use Wet & Forget. Our line of indoor and outdoor surface treatment cleaners will gently lift stains caused by organic growth and help inhibit their future growth. Because our sprayers are easy to use, they will only add a few minutes to your pre- or post-holiday cleaning routine.
What Outdoor Holiday Decorations Need Cleaning?
Your outdoor holiday decorations don’t live an easy life. Stuffed into storage all year round, they’re yanked out of boxes and almost immediately exposed to the harsh outdoor elements like snow, wind, and freezing temperatures. Their lack of access to sunlight means they’re often kept in the dark, even when they’re in use.
This type of environment—dark, damp, and untouched—is the perfect environment for organic growth. Algae, mold, mildew, moss, and lichens are all potential foragers looking for the perfect spot to set up shop and spread. These bothersome blights may take on the appearance of black streaks, slick green spots, or other discolorations.
If left untreated, it won’t take long for surface build-up to spread. For instance, fungi-infected string lights could soon send a trail of spores to your roof. Blow-up Rudolph may leave the gift of green, slimy film on your driveway. If things get bad enough, you may wish Santa left you some coal so you could burn everything down.
So, as you unpack your holiday decorations before the season or pack them back up afterward, keep an eye out for slick spots, discolorations, and plant-like growths on your signs of seasonal celebration:
- Artificial wreaths
- Inflatable decorations
- Light-up figures
- Nativity scenes
- New Year countdown displays
- Outdoor menorahs
- Porch garlands and ribbons
- Seasonal yard signs
- String lights
Essentially, anything that spends any amount of time outside becomes susceptible to biological coatings of algae, moss, mold, or mildew.
How to Clean Outdoor Holiday Decorations
Because seasonal decor can be made from a variety of materials, you’ll want an outdoor surface cleaner that’s safe to use on virtually any exterior surface. Our Wet & Forget Outdoor products are free of bleach and phosphates so they can safely lift stains from the surface of almost any holiday decoration:
- Coatings and finishes, such as painted surfaces, stained surfaces, and stucco.
- Ground surfaces, such as artificial turf, asphalt, and concrete.
- Masonry surfaces, such as brick, clay, marble, slate, and stone.
- Metal surfaces, such as aluminum and steel.
- Synthetic surfaces, such as plastic, PVC, rubber, and vinyl.
- Wood and wood-like surfaces, such as composite, teak, and other woods.
While we offer several products in our Outdoor surface cleaning line, there are two here that may be especially effective.
For small-scale cleaning of up to 180 square feet, we recommend Wet & Forget Ready-to-Use. It offers everything you need to effectively and efficiently treat holiday decorations, from a pre-mixed formula that’s ready to apply to a versatile sprayer that quickly applies the spray.
If you’re the highlight of your neighborhood’s holiday lights tour, consider Wet & Forget Concentrate. A single one-gallon bottle offers enough concentrated cleaner to make six gallons of surface treatment solution. Mix one part Concentrate with five parts water in your favorite garden pump sprayer and you’re ready to attack stains caused by pesky outdoor organic growths.
Once you’ve properly mixed your Wet & Forget Concentrate, applying it to holiday decorations is as straightforward as Wet & Forget Ready-to-Use.
- Wait until temperatures are at least 32 degrees Fahrenheit and without wind or rain in the forecast for at least four hours after application.
- Spray surfaces.
That’s it. There’s no need to scrub or get your pressure washer out. Apply to holiday decorations as you take them out of storage or before putting them back into storage. (Let the spray dry fully before packing up your decorations.)
The spray gets to work immediately, then combines with wind and rain to gently lift stains over time. Depending on your local weather and climate, a single application can help keep surfaces free of organic growth for a year or more.
Why Do You Need to Care for Indoor Holiday Decorations?
While your indoor holiday decorations may not get as exposed to the elements as your outdoor ones, they still come into contact with plenty of nasty stuff you’d prefer not to spread. We’re talking about germs, yes, but also allergy-inducing dust or gross grime. Mold and mildew are still a threat indoors, and with them the potential for a musty odor that leaves your home smelling less like the holidays and more like an old hotel room.
With guests, including those with little kids, likely touching, sharing, and perhaps passing holiday decorates to and fro, your touches of seasonal celebration mustn’t include flu or COVID-causing germs.
So, whether you’re taking your winter decor out of storage or packing it away for next year, try to clean these common surfaces:
- Artificial wreaths
- Centerpieces
- Garland
- Holiday figurines
- Indoor string lights
- Menorahs
- Nativity scenes
- Ornaments
- Snow globes
- Seasonal throw pillows
How to Clean Indoor Holiday Decorations
Much like their outdoor counterparts, indoor holiday decorations can be made from many different materials. An effective surface cleaner must be safe to use on each of those surfaces.
That’s why we designed Wet & Forget Indoor to be safe on almost every indoor surface, except for natural marble. Its bleach-free formula means you can use it almost everywhere in your home:
- Appliances
- Bathroom surfaces, such as fixtures, showers, sinks, and tubs
- Cabinets and countertops.
- Children or pet surfaces, such as bedding, highchairs, or toys.
- Clothes or waste receptacles, such as garbage cans, gym bags, or hampers.
- Furniture and upholstery, such as chairs, couches, and tables.
Wet & Forget Indoor is also an all-in-one cleaner that disinfects, sanitizes, and deodorizes. It kills 99.9% of bacteria and viruses* on hard, non-porous surfaces while attacking the source of odors instead of simply masking them. And its fast-drying, no-scrub formula means application is easy-breezy.
For maximum cleaning effect, apply Wet & Forget Indoor to surfaces and allow the surfaces to remain visibly wet for up to 10 minutes. Then either wipe dry or allow the spray to air dry. To inhibit mold and mildew growth, repeat weekly or as new growth appears.
To sanitize soft surfaces, hold the bottle six to eight inches away from the surface and spray until the fabric is wet. Allow the fabric to remain visibly wet for at least five minutes, then air dry.
You can use Wet & Forget Indoor both as you take your decorations out of storage or before you put them away. Allow surfaces to dry completely before storing them.
*As a disinfectant, Wet & Forget® Indoor Mold+ Mildew Disinfectant Cleaner kills: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella enterica, Serratia marcescens, *Human Coronavirus,*lnfluenza Virus Type A/ Hong Kong, *SARS Associated Coronavirus cause of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, *SARS-Related Coronavirus 2 SARS-CoV-2 cause of COVID-19, *Vaccinia (Pox Virus), *Norwalk Virus (Norovirus), *Rotavirus.”
Use Wet & Forget to Keep Your Holiday Decorations Safe and Clean
Cleaning and maintaining your holiday decorations is the best way to keep them safe and avoid the passing the germs. With Wet & Forget at your side, you can quickly and easily treat holiday decoration surfaces to prevent the growth and spread of organic growth and germs. Pick up a bottle or two today either online or at your local retailer!