Take Down

It is funny how differently you can feel about your Christmas decorations from when you first put them up to when you take them down. The whole process is a lot of work, but we go through it…trying to remake the Currier & Ives Christmas. Or at the very least, make it so it doesn’t look like the Scrooge family is in the house. But when it is all over…the crap has to come down.

When you are pulling your dear treasured decorations out of the holiday boxes…it’s like, “oooh, it’s the family star decoration passed down from Aunt Biddy.” Then, “sigh…. look it’s the special ornament Colinboy made when he was in the first grade.” And, “ahhhh….remember the beautiful shell ornament we picked out when we were on vacation.”

But when the decorations are coming down…you give them a good look and see them for what they really are. You ask, “What was so special about Aunt Biddy’s hand-me-downs anyway? And Colinboy was cute, but his decoration is really an old piece of frayed paper (jk-col), And that shell ornament was a rip-off. It has yellowed and was ugly to start…What were we thinking?” The rose-colored glasses are now off and you see the crap for what it really is….crap.

The day after New Years, you wake up (or is this just me) and you take a look around. The tree looks like something that is begging to be discarded. It has just plain given up…every last needle is on the floor and all the ornaments have slid down the branches. The greenery and the knick knacks on the mantle are the perfect dust collectors. The stockings hung by the chimney with care are beginning to look like ole socks. You just can’t get this stuff down fast enough. Yep, I take one look around and think, “It is so out of here. I’ll give it a year before I look at this again!”

So you begin packing it away. You start with some planned organization…family room stuff goes in the red box…Santa and Mrs. Claus are stored together…(hey, they would miss each other and that would be sad). But then after a while…this organization is taking way too long. So you start flinging it around and throwing it into boxes. “Just want it out of here and back in the basement!!”

Excuse me, but I have to go now. I'm off to the 50 percent sale for Christmas decorations at the Taj MaMall… gotta get more crap for next year.