Christmas Notebook

It’s that time of year…every room in the house has stacks of boxes. Below are the boxes for the dining room where DH and I worked last evening. DH took the tree off the table in the corner, and I took all the ornaments off it, wrapped them, and put them in their boxes.

As I take down the decorations, I refer to my Room Pages binder. Those of you on the Christmas Notebook list know about room pages. One room per page and each page lists all the ways that room is decorated for Christmas. Because I have so many ideas stored behind each room page, things I’d like to try one day, I have a binder dedicated to my Room Pages. At the front of the binder is my storage list, printed from a computer file.

As I put items away, I refer to the list. I know which item goes into which box, making the repacking easy. If I have ornaments, for the snow tree for example, the list shows me that box #7 contains the cardboard box for those ornaments. Saves a lot of time. When the box is ready to go to the attic, I mark the list with “2008” for next Christmas. That lets me know which boxes are current and properly packed when it comes time to unpack next fall. If I am looking for a particular item, and the box that item is supposed to be in is marked “2008,” I will know the item is really there. When all the decorations and boxes are stored in the attic, I will revise the computer file to reflect any changes I made to the list this year.

After the ornaments are put away, DH shakes the tree branches to remove as much of the artificial snow as possible. A dust pan and broom gets most of it up in no time. The rest is vacuumed. I vacuum the branches of the tree as well. Not to get every bit of snow off, but enough that the tree doesn’t make a big mess when unpacked next year.

When it’s ready, the tree is bagged, with the lights left on.

Because the bag doesn’t reach the top of the tree, I tie it shut with curling ribbon. When DH takes it to the attic, he will top it off with a garbage bag. That keeps dust off the tree while in storage and makes less mess as it is hauled up two flights of stairs and back down again in the fall.

Buttercup’s favorite place to nap during the holidays was under the snow tree. She was uneasy about all the commotion last night and finally stood over by the living room tree, watching. DH said she was guarding it, so we wouldn’t take it down, too. LOL

After the dining room was done, we worked in the living room, removing all the decorations except the tree and the window toppers (garlands with bows). The tree, at least, will wait until next week. That is a big job and takes a lot of time. We have company coming for the weekend, extra guests for supper on Saturday, a weekend seminar to attend at church, and a funeral on Saturday. Too much going on to try to get that tree down before Friday evening.

Believe me, I know the above is more than most do for Christmas storage, but if you had more than 120 boxes of Christmas decorations, you would need a system, too! 🙂

How is your “un-decorating” coming along? Maybe you’re done…maybe not. If not, you’re not alone. I’ll be working on this through next week, I am sure.

~~Rhonda