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.

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.

The nativity set is stored carefully wrapped in bubble wrap.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I didn’t know I could use tinsel on an artificial tree until my sister Margaret told me five or six years ago that she always uses it on her own tree. We had a cut tree in the living room until I found that out. Then we went to artificial, which I had wanted to do for some time as we decorate so early and leave the tree up so long. I had stayed with using a cut tree so I could use tinsel.

In this picture, I’ve started taking the tinsel off the bottom of the tree…grabbed it by handfuls, saved some just because it came off so well, and the rest went into the trash.

After the tinsel was removed, I took off the ornaments. I store plain balls in a cardboard box without wrapping them in tissue. I’ve never had a problem with this method. I used a storage box lid to hold the other ornaments as they were removed. Then they were carried to the dining room table where they were sorted.

At the table, I had a lid for each of the three kids and for my and DH’s ornaments. When they came from the tree, I sorted them onto the ends of the lids…DD#3 at the far end, then DD#2, DD#1, and DH and my ornaments at this end of the table. After sorting all the ornaments I had carried from the tree, I stopped long enough to wrap the ornaments in tissue paper and place them into cardboard boxes which were also sitting on the storage lids. Each cardboard box has the name of the child whose ornaments are in that box. They have always enjoyed putting their own ornaments on the tree, so I have always kept them stored separately.

I don’t wrap unbreakable ornaments with tissue. I like to have a box or two of ornaments I can hand to children who want to “help.” They like having an entire box of ornaments they can put up without constantly being told “be careful!”

I did tier one – what I could reach sitting down, and tier two – what I could reach standing up. DH did tier 3 – what had to be reached from the ladder. BTW, we love our Little Giant ladder! It’s a wonderful tool for “this old house.” I gave it to DH for Christmas several years ago and we are constantly commenting on how glad we are to have it.

Once the ornaments were removed, we took the red beads and the popcorn and cranberry strings off. The beads are stored in a large zippered storage bag. They are thrown in together and never tangle, so they are easy to store. The popcorn and cranberry strings are pitched. We tried putting them outside for the birds a few times, but never found any interest in them, so now we throw them away.

Then it was time to remove the lights. Most years, we remove the lights from the lower four branches, remove the branches for storage in black bags (because the tree is too wide to fit through the attic door otherwise), and leave the rest of the tree intact. This year, we removed all the lights because many of the strings are old and fading. They need to be replaced. We were able to buy the commercial grade of light strings after Christmas for 75% off. A great deal and we will use those to replace the lights on this tree and the library tree next year.

I wrap the lights around my hand and store each string in a plastic shopping bag. I begin wrapping at the female end (the end without the prongs) so the male end (prongs) are on the outside of the roll. That makes it easy to plug the string in next year to check it, without unwinding the entire string.

This year, we took the tree completely apart, then replaced the branches. Some were obviously out of order (not sure how that happened!) which gave the tree an odd shape. As we removed each layer, I lined up the bundles in the front hall, with layer #1 at the front door and coming down the hall in order. We checked each layer to be sure all the branches were there and that all the branches in each layer matched. Now the tree is in good order and looks better.

With the tree down, DH was able to remove the window garlands and that was the end of “undecorating” the living room.

This is the two foot tall box DH made for the 9′ tree to stand on. The round things are sliders which make moving the tree across the floor very easy.

And now the living room is back to “normal.” It looks bare after all the decorations are removed, but now we’re ready for our 4H meeting tomorrow evening!

~~Rhonda

One storage box is an ornament box, which holds most of the tree’s ornaments. The plain glass balls are stored separately in a plastic sack. I don’t bother wrapping each one of those. Balls with decoration or glitter go into the ornament box, without wrapping. Fragile ornaments are wrapped with tissue paper and placed around them to keep them from shifting.

Unbreakable ornaments are not wrapped in tissue paper before being placed in the ornament box for storage. Small ornaments are tucked into leftover spaces.

The other boxes hold the plastic bag of plain balls, a bag of silk flowers for the tree, tulle for under the tree, the three trees for the top of the bookcase, etc.

We have a lot of wreaths in the house during the holidays. This one decorates the door to the guest room. It will be covered with a white garbage bag and hung in the attic until next Christmas.

There are three trees left on the first floor. Tomorrow, I will start taking down the big one in the living room. ~~Rhonda

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