meet me in the living room at 1:00

Taking Christmas down is a long term project around here. We usually wait until after Epiphany (celebrated January 6) to begin taking apart the holiday decor. The season was so busy that I feel I haven’t had time to enjoy the decorations as much as I usually do. And, if we weren’t planning a vacation for January, I’d be tempted to leave the decorations up for a while. But, strike while the iron is hot, as they say. The girls are home and able to help. This morning they helped clean up the kitchen which was still harboring party debris from Tuesday evening. DH had washed a lot of the dishes, but the tabletops and the counters were still a mess. After cleaning the room, I asked the girls to meet me in the living room at 1:00. We’d start on the Christmas decorations.

By the time I had printed my storage list and made it to the living room, the girls already had the mantle decorations down, wrapped and stored in the box. One down…103 to go.

mantle...done

Here’s a picture to show how we use books to create varying heights under the nativity display. After the books are placed, all are covered with a large piece of gold, star-spangled tulle. Of course, this picture is working backwards…we’ve taken the nativity down, the tulle has been removed and the books are on their way back to the library shelves.

under the nativity

The nativity set is stored carefully wrapped in bubble wrap.

storing the nativity

We separated the 16 boxes into stacks…those needed for the tree, those needed for the garlands, and those needed for the rest of the room.

boxes for the tree

Then it was time to remove the tinsel from the tree. This year we had trouble finding tinsel, so we saved a box full for next year, just in case.

removing tinsel

We took a break at 3:00 and met again at 4:00. The living room tree is the biggest part of taking Christmas down in the living room. The tinsel had been removed, so we moved on to taking the ornaments from the tree, sorting them onto storage box lids on the dining room table. The ornaments that belong to DH and to me were placed on two lids, then DD#1’s, DD#2’s and DD#3’s followed down the row.

sorted and ready to put away

From there, we turned to DH for help. He’s the ladder climber. He finished the top of the tree…took off the last of the ornaments, removed the beads and popcorn strings. Then he moved on to the garlands over the arches and the windows.

red beads off...on to the popcorn

All that’s left of Christmas in the living room is the big tree with the lights still on it and the small tree on the box grand piano.

Feels good to have so much done!

~~Rhonda

7 Comments

  1. Mary
    Posted January 2, 2009 at 6:05 am | Permalink

    Rhonda- I am not looking forward to putting away our Christmas things – but haven’t nearly as many as you. I will leave my snow village and snowman decorations out until almost Easter. I like to enjoy them as long as possible.

    Mary

  2. Posted January 2, 2009 at 7:04 pm | Permalink

    Hi Rhonda. I just want to let you know how much I enjoy work website. I live in Red Bud and attended you open house this year on Saturday afternoon. I have a question for you. Where did you get the curved green sofa in you front room? My husband and I are looking for a new sofa and yours is the first one I’ve seen that I truly like.
    Thanks for the info,
    Kelly

  3. ~~Rhonda
    Posted January 2, 2009 at 10:08 pm | Permalink

    Kelly, I’m so glad you were able to come to the open house. I remember talking to you while you were here. Friend of Charlene’s, right? Glad you liked the sofa. I sent info to you via email. 🙂 ~~Rhonda

  4. Posted January 3, 2009 at 2:44 am | Permalink

    your decorations were beautiful—MaryAnn

  5. ~~Rhonda
    Posted January 3, 2009 at 2:13 pm | Permalink

    MaryAnn, thanks for your comment. I amended it a touch. I hope you don’t mind. I emailed you after you commented before, using the email address at bigtooth… Did you get that email? Am sending another. 🙂 ~~Rhonda

  6. Posted January 4, 2009 at 2:20 pm | Permalink

    hope you keep the notebook year ’round

  7. ~~Rhonda
    Posted January 5, 2009 at 12:55 am | Permalink

    I plan to keep the blog going. 🙂 It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy sharing it with everyone. ~~Rhonda

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