The OTHER 11 months of the year.
You know the "normal" months.
The months where you don't have access to an abundance of baked goods in the kitchen 24/7.
The months where there isn't a large tree in your living room.
The months where scented candles don't waft evergreen aromas throughout the downstairs.
The months where there are not boxes wrapped in mismatched festive paper cluttering the home.
That's right. I called it clutter.
Because as much as I like to hop on the holiday bandwagon early each year, I am also the first stop to get off.
The tree came down on December 26th. It's not as Grinchy as it sounds. It had been up since the week BEFORE Thanksgiving and it encompassed 50% of our cozy (read: small) living room.
Oh, it's not that the tree that is the problem. It's the fact that 2/3 of the wee ones who take residence here did their best to "undecorate" it daily and eat the needles and ornament hooks which resulted in us needing to fence our tree in with an expandable baby corral. It almost looked as if our tree was a pristine display that we wanted to showcase by the way it was confined to a "no humans allowed" cage.
I am really very festive.
I baked weekly.
I made reindeer food.
I hosted a gingerbread party for 12 kindergarteners.
I crafted.
I wrapped.
I sang Dominic the Donkey in the off key way that only my tone deaf self can do for the better part of December.
We attended gatherings and tree lightings and Polar Express rides and laser light shows set to holiday ditties.
But, come 12/26 I pull the plug.
I pull the plug on the lights and the music and the oven.
I package it all into it's red and green rubbermaid totes and stuff it into the back corner of the basement until next November when I'm feeling "merry" again.
Am I crazy? Does anyone else view the holiday hoopla as festive through 12/25 @ midnight and then view it as clutter and chaos and overload after that?
You know me. I love to organize any day of the year, but there is something about ringing in a New Year that makes me want to purge and clean like no other time.
I hope your holidays were filled with fabulous memories and like our Christmas card said..
6 comments:
Grinchy is when you take the tree down on Christmas DAY (I know someone who did). Mine is still up, but it won't be for long. I'm with you -- at this point, I'm ready for the rest of my living room back and I don't even have real little ones who want to pull everything off the tree!
I am so with you, I started yesterday and am finishing up today. I love the decorations but the day after is seems to be one big cluttered mess and I want to clean.
I'm with you! I'm one of those people who starts the Christmas music in August, shops all year round, and ventures out in the wee hours of Black Friday, but once 12/26 is here, I'm excited to get the space back in our home and to start the new year. I get very excited at the thought of "redoing" our living room and everywhere else when the tree comes down and such.
So funny! We took down the tree on 12/26, too. Usually, I'm ready closer to New Year's day, but I was over it this year. We had no decorations on the bottom 1/3 of the tree and no balls at all to avoid the baby destruction factor. So, the tree was meh - I didn't love it. Until next year!
I'm with you, day after Christmas is the day to reclaim your lounge space. We are a family of 5 in an ultra small rental with what feels like in the last month has been nothing but continual rain, when the sun does peek out ,the yard is too boggy for my 3 darlings to really burn off energy- I need that lounge room space back ASAP. And as we all know Christmas 2011 will be here in the blink of an eye anyway. Happy New Year from Australia!!!!
I'm speechless...almost anyway. I found your blog from Not Just Child's Play. Both of which are new finds for me (as in just now found them) and both are perfect.
I absolutely heart organization and seeing pictures of said organization on your blog makes my heart flutter. Reading your descriptions of how new school supplies make you giddy is like me reading a page from my journal, if I kept one.
I used to teach 2nd grade, but now I'm fortunate enough to stay at home with the littles. I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching and organizing which makes your blog AMAZING! (wow, those two sentences didn't even begin to flow together)
Now, as for this specific post, I always take down the tree on Dec. 26, even though it's my husband's birthday. I do everything possible to celebrate this time of year before the big day, but come the day after Christmas I am done and ready to reclaim some normalcy and ORDER!
It is almost midnight and New Year's Day (my birthday! yes, me and the husband have stinkily timed birthdays...the little red line under stinkily is telling me it's not a word or is misspelled, but I'm sticking with it) and I'm reading your blog. Some may cry "boring," as this is not the traditional way to ring in the new year, but I am having fun reading your ideas. Thanks!
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