As long as you run the zwave repair utility after you unplug it, any devices that were dependent on it will plan a new route, so I don’t usually exclude something I’m just temporarily removing from the network, even if it’s for a couple of months. But I’m lazy that way. 
I’m sure best practices is as was described: remove it, then unplug it. I just hate having those gaps in the network IDs.
Thanks. The repair utility runs quite quickly (used it today when I relocated a plug-in outlet about 6 feet from its original location). That sounds like a quick method.
Don’t devices that cannot find a neighbor rebuild their routing table after a while? These two Christmas switches are going be on the physical edge of my network, so I doubt they will be routing to other neighbors.
Some do, some don’t. 