Putting Christmas Away

A Bombay Company ornament

Now that Epiphany has passed, we really had no excuse to procrastinate about taking down our Christmas decorations. This is a chore I do myself because I'm a little bit obsessive about how my ornaments go away.


Okay, a LOT obsessive. I've bought a few very breakable ornaments in the past few years (since our kids have grown older), and I do care about how they are put away. And I keep most of the boxes the ornaments go in (even the plastic ones) just to keep everything neat and tidy. It also makes it easier to decorate the tree the coming year.

But I do enjoy handling each ornament as it goes into its snug little nest.

I always feel that our tree-topper angel never gets her share of the attention, since she is not lit at all.

Sometimes I find funny little tableaux as I place the ornaments down.

This funny cat really looks like it would like to taste that bird. Or play with it. Yah, that's what he wants.

The burst of energy that got the ornaments tucked away also drove me to tackle the mess of our gift-wrapping area, an array of Rubbermaid bins and IKEA drawers.

Over the past holiday season, the contents of the bins had been liberally strewn about. Gift bags fanned across the basement floor. Ribbon bows were compressed to two dimensions. Spools of tape and ribbon were tucked beneath heaps of tags and paper. Christmas stuff was mingled with Easter, Valentine's and birthday.

God bless anyone who could find what he or she was looking for.

So I brought the whole mess upstairs. so I could handle it in a well lit area. With fewer spiders.

Two roll-away bins of paper, tags, bows, bags, ribbon, bubble wrap

MORE bags, ribbon and bows

MORE tags, ribbon and bags.
We had TWO drawers like this. 

The very worst part was ALL THOSE GIFT BAGS! When they first started making gift bags, I was thrilled. Yay! No more wrapping paper. Just toss it in a bag, add some artfully crushed tissue paper and Bob's-yer-uncle! And so eminently reusable!

Hah! Instead, I've accumulated a dollar-store's worth of gift bags. And that is the thought that led me to this solution.

Fortunately, the basement is still unfinished, but when we do finish it, we will definitely include a place to hang these bags.

Once the bags were out of the mix, we were able to consolidate the remaining ribbons, paper, etc. into two drawers. It felt SO GOOD. Like taking a good, long shower after a week out camping.

Sighhhhh.