We put up our Christmas decorations in the house late, so we never rush to take them down. It used to sit around and around and finally I would deal with it - sometimes in March (one year in April, but that was because our garage door froze to the ground and we could not get into it until there was a thaw to get out the boxes to pack in - since then the boxes stay in the house after being unpacked). So after years of it being too soon (to us) to take down decorations and then it was much past when they should have been taken down, we set a date. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered on the 3rd Monday in January - we chose same as when to start taking down the Christmas decorations - the date has no significance to doing so, but it is a fixed time around when we want to do so and the holiday publicity reminds us.
So, that Monday was the day to start. This is for the inside decorations. The outside ones come down based on the weather - it needs to be warm enough to take them down and we are not going to climb through snow to do so. The day before was a COLD day, but snow is expected for the coming weekend, possibly a lot, so we took down the outside lights and put them in the garage (which is also husband’s woodworking shop). We did not wrap them up and pack them as I could not feel 3 of my fingers and needed to warm up. We packed them the next day as it was warmer.
I brought up one of the storage boxes for the inside ornaments - specifically one for ornaments from our main Christmas tree - a few days before. I had planned to bring up the others right away, but I realized that there wasn’t room to bring them up as husband’s loom and related items are spread across the living room and the coffee table moved to accommodate his loom work. I put the box under the coffee table - any place else and we would not be able to walk in the room - until the day after I was suppose to start.
I took out the box, pushed aside the loom items on the sofa (any of this sound like your life?) and opened the box. I started taking ornaments off the tree - not a lot, but a start. The ornaments went right into their storage boxes that were in the box, while I also pulled ones which I have embroidered, off the tree and set them on a chair (which has been decorated for the season an embroidered Christmas throw pillow I made some years ago) to pack later. It is the starting which is hard for me and now it is started.
We used to pack our ornaments in cartons which we had accumulated over the years which originally held reams of paper for the computer, printer, etc. After having bed bugs we wanted them packed in something which sealed better, as well as the fact that corrugated cardboard is something that bed bugs like, so we bought large plastic boxes which lock closed on the ends. We have been storing most of the ornaments in the rafters of our garage. These new boxes had to go through the rafters one end up and then turn. In addition my husband does not like climbing up to get them down - he has to clear off a work table (yes, he is like me and there is disorganization in his workshop) and stand on it and lean over to move the boxes around. The boxes were not all that light, even after I rearranged the contents so lighter and heavier items were more mixed together than before. The need to rearrange the contents was annoying to me as I had the boxes originally packed so that the nicest ornaments came out of one box and I worked my way down to the fill in ornaments in the last of the tree ornament boxes, the general “in the house” decorations were in their own 2 boxes, etc. Now they were all mixed together to distribute the weight. Not at all convenient for unpacking and repacking.
The last 2 winters we had so much snow - continuously (last winter we went through a month or more of major snowstorms every 2-3 days) - that the decorations were packed into their boxes, but by the time we could move the boxes to the (detached) garage for storage it was almost summer and we left them stacked where the main tree had been - which left all of the furniture which gets moved around to fit in the Christmas trees and such also not put where they belonged.
I have come up with a solution. I found a spot where the boxes will fit in our basement. We have a small “closet” with our gas meter in it and there is space between the side of same and the shelves holding bolts of fabric where it looked like the boxes would fit. I cleared out the area - what looks like used plastic drop clothes, and empty bolt cardboard centers (kept in case we ever needed to wrap large cuts of fabric onto them - like we ever would) with the plastic that had been over the original fabric also kept - were all thrown out - the cardboard put in for recycling. I moved the remaining items out of the area. I found not only do the boxes fit the space, but the widest dimension of the boxes fit so they will fit in more compactly then I thought - good if I they do not all fit in one stack (we have low ceilings even in the main part of the house). I also found out that I had more of certain preprinted panel baby quilt fabric - I used to make and sell panel baby quilts) that I thought I had no more of. I am not interested in making a quilt, but I had finished two embroidered teddy bear pieces from a kit and wanted to make 2 other pieces to go with them and had envisioned embroidering the decision two of the bears from the quilt panel - one each - on matching squares to make a 4 square hanging piece, so by cleaning up a bit I now have the teddy bears to copy, which thought I no longer had - a bit of a reward for the cleaning.
Now I am able to store the boxes in the basement. Weather will not affect being able to store them. I will not need husband to be able to access them and he will not need to go climbing up. Weight does not matter as much anymore and I will be able to repack everything as it used to be.
The outside Christmas lights were also stored in the garage and needed, even more dangerously, for him to climb on a ladder and then hand the box down to me while balancing on the ladder. They can now go where the other ornaments used to be, still a climb, but safer. I suggested we split them into 2 smaller boxes to deal with the rafters problem and make them ligher - maybe even switching with 2 smaller boxes I had some decorations in and I would take the large box for the decorations in exchange for the smaller ones. He will also have more room to store wood in his shop. I cleaned the large box from the lights well and this idea worked - 2 smaller, lighter boxes of outdoor Christmas lights - stored in the rafters of the garage - and a nice large box for wool.
Better all around such a simple idea.
Have you taken down your Christmas decorations and tree? Has everything been put away yet?
I have since taken down and stored the rest of the ornaments from the main and studio tree as well as stored the Christmas decorations from the main floor of the house. After finishing this I found a Christmas doll who had evaded me. She will be put into the “soft” decorations box shortly. I also took down and stored the dining room tree and it’s ornaments. It’s ornaments are all collectible brass ones from Colonial Williamsburg so they are being stored upstairs as they were before as I don’t want them in the damp basement.
Why publish this now? Well, missing from the above is putting away my (our?) little village of teddy bear figurines. We both love it so that it is always hard to put it away. This past week I spent 2 days packing up the little bears, their tree and some buildings (every teddy bear town needs a honey store, a church, a first aid office and a fruit store - right?).
I have been asked what a teddy bear village is. I had a large number of teddy bear ornaments and they were taking over our main Christmas tree. So we bought a table top tree and moved some of them to that tree and put it at the top of the stairs so it could also be seen from the main floor of the house. I then added some little bears I had - some on little ladders decorating the tree - and it just kept going. It is amazing how many (cheap) small bear figurines with a Christmas theme there are. Not all of them are specifically Christmas - there is a small band of bears playing at the church while others are singing. There are bears at a phone booth making a call (an inch tall). There is a polar bear helping himself to a certain cola which uses him for ads. There is a “craft” fair of bears with small craft like items. There is a gazebo in the park (as of 2014 it even has lights). There is a parade and bears watching the parade - well I guess you get the idea. Many, if not most people would think we are crazy, but we think it is cute.
Well, that means 95% of my Christmas stuff is stored. The only items left (other than the doll who hid) are some other bears that are displayed in the living room and could not be stored until the village was as they store in the box the village is on the top of.
Well, luckily I do a lot less for Easter. Unless we start doing an Easter teddy village - we are kicking around the idea of making it seasonal...
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