I need to get myself in the mood for one of the more difficult tasks of the year: taking down the Christmas tree. This is the latest we have taken it down and yet we still aren’t sick of it, so I don’t mind so much. I just feel it’s time to move on to the next thing.
It is nowhere near as exciting and fun as setting it up and decorating it. No one wants to help and for some reason every box of decorations is basically in a shambles. As a result, I am left never putting anything except the actual tree ornaments back where they belong.
It doesn’t help that we have way too many decorations and that I can seldom bring myself to throw anything away. I love them all and there are so many memories attached to everything.
I have gotten better in one respect. I used to put every single thing out every year. It was just too much and I finally reigned myself in and just display what I actually really like. I still ‘visit’ my decorations but they don’t all make it beyond me unwrapping their protective paper for a loving glance and brief stroll down memory lane.
Still, it is a chore I dread and the fact that we use tinsel doesn’t help in the slightest. It’s messy and there is always some left on the tree. We also put an awful lot of ornaments on the tree. It takes a while to put them all away properly. And one of my kids is a ‘twister’. She twists the little wire ornament hooks around the tree branch so instead of just lifting the hook and ornament off the tree you have to undo it like a twist tie. UGH!
But as much as I dread it and hate it, it must be done and I believe tomorrow is the day.
Maybe if I play Christmas carols it will help and I can focus on the next time I’ll handle the ornaments ten months from now, in November.
It seems so far away right now, but it will be here before we know it.