It’s that time of the week when we share a slice of our lives with the wonderful writing community at “Two Writing Teachers”
Our Christmas tree is finally down, ornaments packed away.
This has been the longest it has remained up. We keep it decorated and lit until my birthday on Jan. 7. This year, for several reasons, it stayed up until last night. But I definitely enjoyed the extra days of the decorated, lit tree.
This year we are trying to downsize – and Christmas decorations is one area I must do so. I have 12 tuubs of Christmas decorations – for example: 2 tubs of ornaments, one tub just of angel ornaments, 2 tubs of house decorations, a tub of pillows and stockings.
(Here’s a sample of the tubs!)
As I took the ornaments off the tree, I once again reflected on where we’d gotten them and why or if I loved them. If I didn’t love it, I put it aside. By the end of the process, I had two bags of ornaments to give away.
Now over the next few days, I will sort through all the tubs. There are so many keepsakes though – my children’s crafts, my mother-in-law’s special projects. These will go into the attic for safe keeping.
Christmas has lasted just a little bit longer this year!
Beverley A Baird 
I admire your appreciation of your Xmas tree. I always want to rip mine down on December 26th. I do, however, love looking through my ornaments. You’re right – they all tell a story.
Having been in teaching for so long I have many ornaments signed by children and then lots made bymyown children. Those are special.
I do hate taking the tree down…it’s always such a sad feeling that the holidays are a thing of the past. Plus – it’s so much work!
That’s for sure. Problem is our tubs are in the attic and we need help getting them down and then back up. This year I decided to finally narrow it down to 4 or 5 and put them in the basement so we can do it ourselves next year. Much easier.
Downsizing is so hard, especially when there are so many memories tied to the items. Good luck with the sorting the rest of the week.
Thanks Elsie. I am still trying to downsize my teaching stuff for goodness sake! But I will keep working at it.
I downsized when my daughter who was visiting decided to sort through her things! I joined and also got rid of a few items! She was my inspiration! P.S. I still have my Christmas lights in the kitchen. Love the light they bring in the dark evenings or mornings.
Light in the dark is special. I wish my kids would want some of these things but I don’t think any of them decorate to the extent I did or do.
Being Byzantine, we always kept our tree up until after Greek Christmas-January 7th. We too have tubs of ornaments most of which have a special meaning. It is hard to downsize. Good luck with your task.
I’ve put everything away, but what I call my kitchen tree. I’ll leave it up for a while longer-like looking at it. I cleaned out much of my Things when I moved, boxed the children’s ornaments and passed them on, but I still have a lot. I don’t have the places to display them all anymore, and need to do something with them. Best wishes to you for doing something, Bev. Sounds like you made some progress!
I did make progress and got everything sorted and listed in my Christmas book. At least I know what I have and where it will be.
This year, our daughter had the only tree – a little two-foot pink sparkly thing, just right for a ten year old girl. She picked through the ornaments, and made some of her own. As I type this, she’s twisting pipe cleaners into spirals, and hanging those on it to welcome spring….she wants to be prepared!
I’ve been downsizing many things, and ornaments are one of the ones on my list.
Hooray for the extra days, and the reducing of excess. =)
My kids each had their own little trees – loved their creativity. All down now and everything sorted.
This year, I put on sacred music which made the un-decorating a spiritual exercise. I have a hard time parting with any of the kid-made ornaments, even if I don’t put them on the tree.
You must not have a real tree. By Jan. 1, our Douglas Fir is mostly on the floor.
Email me and I can send you the shawl pattern I used.
Thanks Margaret. I got everything sorted and am down to 5 tubs out of 14 that I will keep – the rest to the attic. Our place is small now so I really can’t use everything – but I kept track of hat is in each tub – easier to find things. Will send an email for sure.
Thanks