Since the Christmas Tree had been up since the Saturday after Thanksgiving, there was much time to enjoy it. The presents all wrapped under a sparkling lit tree on Christmas Eve is one of my favorite sights.
The horrendous mess after all the loot is opened on Christmas Day is quite another story altogether. The essential morning cleanup usually doesn't happen until the afternoon and by then I am ready to REALLY clean up.
In my opinion, there are two cleanups associated with Christmas -- one is the immediate paper, ribbons, cardboard, twist ties (every toy has like two dozen), foam packing, instructions, plastic packaging, boxes, tissue, cut off tags and whatever else is left over from the opening frenzy. The other is actually putting all the Christmas decorations away and sending the tree curb side. I prefer to combine the two and restore my quarters to an uncluttered undecorated state as soon as possible.
This year since we planned a trip to Boise, I thought it most efficient to complete the jobs before departure -- so out to the shed I went for decoration boxes. The kids removed the seventies themed beauties from the tree and I packed them safely away. Next came the lights until the tree stood bare except for the snow and tinsel.
Normally I would summon Tim to drag the tree out the living room, down the stairs, out the door and around the side of the house near the garbage cans. The trail of pine needles and water from the tree stand is a dead giveaway of where the tree has gone.
After calculating the added mess with tinsel and snow tracked all the way to the garbage can -- I got a brilliant, albeit, slightly bahumbugish idea. With lops in hand I disassembled the tree limb by fragrant limb shoving into a large lawn and leaf bag as I went. Amazed by my own super efficiency I chuckled as the last limb fell to the ground. All that was left to do was vacuum up the snow and tinsel.
I called to Tim for help in removing the tree and the look on his face when he saw what remained still cracks me up.
1 comment:
Brenda, you do everything with great efficiency. Especially our book keeping. You are the best!
Post a Comment