Monday, January 01, 2007

Destruction Elf

I've been talking to a few different people about when they plan to take down their Christmas decorations. Some put so much effort into putting up lights they choose to leave them up all year rather than re-do it. Is that being efficient or tacky?

We didn't do house/yard lights this year. For that matter, I didn't decorate the outside at all, although I have in years past. This year my take-down process has been fairly simple and all in the coziness of being inside.

As a general rule, I almost always take down all our Christmas decorations - whether simple or elaborate, right after Christmas is done. Like the very next day. On a couple years I started packing it away by 10 PM on Dec 25! This is so much a part of my usual tradition that when it was all still up on Dec 26 my husband was astonished, and said to me: "who are you and what have you done with my wife?"

This year my plan was to leave it up till Jan 7, the Orthodox celebration of Nativity. But I just couldn't do it. The tree came down on the 27th and today I will put away all the nativity sets (I have A LOT - and put out 15 of them this year) along with angels, holly, wreaths and other decorations.

Although I do look forward to this sacred season, and for the most part enjoy it, for a variety of reasons I'm always eager to put Christmas behind me.

Ya know how some people make big bucks decorating places for Christmas? I could be the destruction elf. I love taking it all down. I'd be happy to undecorate OTHER people's trees as well as my own, and after having moved 28 times I'm a very skilled packer. HMMM... Maybe a new sideline?

2 comments:

Kelly Sedinger said...

We've been known to leave our stuff up until February! It's pretty, so why take it down?

layne (herman) said...

Though the lights on the house are still up, not lit... just up still.

The tree has come down. Without discussing it with the Mrs. I think our plan was to leave it up until Orthodox Old Calendar Nativity (jan 7) but with the arrival of my parents we learned that my Dad has allergies to pine and so the tree went out in compassion to him.

Though a drive down the street has shown that if our family wanted to wait on a tree until after 12/26 we could have many to choose from and pick one up from a nearby gutter for free. Tempting... tempting.

Enrich Your Word Power!

Word of the Day
Quote of the Day


This Day in History