Out With the Old

I'm feeling very accomplished and self-satisfied. Four weeks after the Christmas holiday and three weeks into the New Year, I have at last taken down my Christmas decorations. Please, ladies and gentlemen, hold your applause.

As a self-proclaimed queen of procrastination, it is indeed a miracle that this occurred before Valentines Day. However, when I came home from work one day to see pieces of garland protruding from my little dog's mouth, and then saw the mutilated garland strewn around the living room floor....well, I knew the time had come.

Putting up Christmas decorations is definitely one of the things I love most about Christmas time. My mother always made it very special and fun for my sister and I. She would always play Christmas music full blast, dim the lights, and burn apple cinnamon scented candles....our house was filled with the sounds and smells of the season.

The sis and I were excited this year to be able to put our own spin on the decorating process, since, for the first time ever, we were on our own. It was fun, but now I can truly appreciate all of the hard work our mom put into making our home feel like Christmas time. I can also appreciate the fact that never, in all  my life, do I ever remember my mom making us put all the decor away. Let me tell you....that is almost a whole day's worth of work in itself.

Of course to begin with, I had to bring in all of the storage boxes in from the storage room on our patio. Not fun when it's 18 degrees outside and the patio is covered with ice. As, I began to pull lights off of the coffee tables, put the nativity scene back into it's box, gather the little St. Nicolas Square houses together, and fold the white "snow", I wondered, "how in the world did all of this stuff fit in these bins before?!"

Logically, I know that all this stuff came out of the bins. So, logically, it CAN all fit in again. I think it probably took me over an hour just trying to get all of it crammed into the stupid bin

Something else I've learned about un-decorating...cleaning is par for the course. I don't know how so much dust can settle in such a short amount of time...but it can and it does. So, if you're not exhausted by the bringing of the storage bins in the house, the taking of the decor off the furniture, or the trying to make the decor fit inside the bins, then the dusting and vacuuming certainly will.

I am proud to say that all this is now complete and my apartment could now grace the front cover of any Better Homes and Gardens magazine. But man! What a chore. And to think my mom has done this every year since I can remember! Props to you Mama!

Anyway. I'm exhausted, and I don't want to see another Christmas decoration for a very long time. So, out with the old and in with the new. Happy New Year World!