I had a wonderful Christmas, and have already put all the decorations away.I like getting it all back into the red and green totes in the storage room. We like to leave the lights out on the Yews during Winter for some cheer during the cold months. Happy New Year!!
My Mom would have all the decorations boxed up and the tree (real in those days) on the curb for trash pick-up before she went to bed on Christmas night. I got everything undecorated today, except for one of the Yule Logs, it looks so pretty I am going to leave it a while longer. Might just change to all white candles for the rest of Winter, then assorted bright colors for Spring, hot Orange for Summer, orange and black for Halloween, rust, green and gold for Thanksgiving,then the Olive and Bordeaux for Yule again. That solves the problem of what to put on the buffet next. Most people in our neighborhood are from south of the border and don't celebrate Thanksgiving but they sure do get the Christmas decorations and lights out early...usually the day after Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). And anyway, I don't decorate that early but it seems to give a lot of people pleasure to do so, so it's fine with me.
My dad is fanatical about his lights outside. He doesn't get carried away by having thousands but loves to make sure everything blends together and looks beautiful. He puts them up the day after Thanksgiving. When he takes them down depends on the weather. I remember one year when we had a blizzard each weekend for five straight weeks. He couldn't put any lights away until the middle of March because they were buried and frozen. Some strands even broke because of the weight of the snow and ice. The Christmas tree is another story. Dad and I would put it up the first week of December and it was down before New Year's. This was my first year of Christmas in my own house. I didn't do any outside lights (they weren't in the budget). But I did do a nice tree. Right now the ornaments are off, but the lights are still on it. I got too distracted with other more desirable projects this weekend. Maybe tonight I'll finish... then again, maybe not.
Well, it's done! I have my house back! All the decorations are down and put away, my son arrived Sunday night to take down the outside lights, and the various Christmas sale items that I always buy after Christmas have been added to the bins and stored. I have plenty of decorations. I don't need any more. But I DO take advantage of the after Christmas sales on ribbon, wrap, gift bags and boxes. They're typically 50% - 75% off, and I go through a ton of all that every Christmas! so it's great to be able to stock up so cheaply. I seldom have to run out and buy more when I'm in frantic wrapping mode in the days leading up to Christmas. It's really nice to see those bins all neatly stored and look around my house and see everything back to normal.............. oh.....wait...........DAMMIT! <retrieves that one last decoration that always seems to evade observation till everything's put away!!!>
I'm sorry, but I'm chuckling here. I also want my house back as soon as possible after New Year's Eve, but I have to battle three very opinionated people who want to keep Christmas until January 13th, the 20th day of Christmas. One year they actually had a demonstration, complete with banners. They threatened to chain themselves to the tree, and yes, they had the chains ready too. We decorate for Christmas on December 1st or the first Sunday of advent, whichever comes first. The tree goes up on December 22d or 23d. This year Christmas is leaving this house on January 6th, come rain or shine. That's Holy Three Kings' Day and the 13th day of Christmas. The rest of the household will be at school and at work and I can do as I please. The only drawback is I won't get any more Christmas sweeties or cookies. I'd best go help myself to some right now!
I like your family, Droopy! I think I would lose my mind if I had to keep Christmas around that long! As much as I love that particular season….it's my favorite and I look forward to it all year….still, if I couldn't have my house back to normal the MOMENT it was over, I'm just not sure WHAT I would do! You're a strong woman!
I like my family too. Most of the time. I guess I've just learned to put up with their quirks. Why not? They put up with mine.
Very strange. The people who are to take tree down after church-do not show up. we are fooling them-still up. Everyone wanted to go home check on things-extra cold temps.
Don't worry Ronni... I found two wooden reindeers hiding on a bookshelf. I just stuck them in the linen closet where the Christmas tablecloth is. Maybe I'll remember to get them out next year.
I found the 18" tall painted wooden reindeer hiding in plain site next to the TV two days after I undecorated and keep forgetting to take the really old window lights off the front window sills...they are still sitting there...oh and I found a sneaky Halloween decoration peaking around the corner the other day.
Cheryl, toni….your responses made me feel better. I am NOT a disorganized person, so it's very frustrating to me to miss something that, in hindsight, seems SO obvious. I mean, it's right there!! But it's not at or above eye level, which is where I tend to look when I'm trying to find those last stragglers. Things up high tend to get missed. But down that low? Just didn't occur to me to look. I mean, I had some decorations sitting on the floor, but they're the large things, things that there's no way to overlook. I don't think there are any other of my christmas decorations that are sitting out that low. Oh well, I needed to reorganize a couple of my christmas bins anyway.
I just looked at one of our doors, and there's a Christmas sticker, bigger than my head. I don't know how I missed that one!
Ronni, you are a caution,lass. chuckle. You know, when I got all the stuff put away and sat quietly chatting with a visitor that evening over a cuppa tea, my attention was caught by minuscule glistening things all over the floor and carpet. Next morinig I was again sitting in the same place reading the paper and sipping tea and I saw the glistening again, and recalled the night before. All the decs were packed-away, but there were so many tiny glitter specks that had fallen off x-mas cards and decs that were now on the floor and embedded in the carpet. It's going to take me ages to get all that stuff out of the carpet! This for me, is a disadvantage to christmas decs. :-?
