Tis the Season

My house is in a huge disarray today. The Christmas decoration boxes have come up from storage in the basement and are clogging my kitchen, dining room and foyer, leading my husband to declare that I have to "cull the herd" and daughter to groan with the task of hauling them up and down stairs. I will admit, I have A LOT of Christmas STUFF. And each year it seems to grow by just a little bit. An ornament here, a wreath there....

For certain I have to weed out the things I no longer display, and possibly pack away some of the treasure to give to my son and his fiance. I was hard-pressed to find a branch available when placing ornaments on one of my two trees. Usually I have too many to fit on the real tree in the living room. Time indeed to go through my collection.

It's pretty tough deciding which items to part with. I'll admit that I'm attached to just about everything related to Christmas. Every ornament unwrapped each December 1st is a little thrill of discovery. I painstakingly wrap each up on January 6th, so when unwrapping, I can feast my eyes upon the cute little treasures I've collected. Many ornaments are from trips I have made both domestically and abroad. Some are exquisite, in fact, for their craftsmanship or colors or materials. The little painted glass bell from Salzburg or the porcelain teddy bear with my son's first baby photo inside, the waterford and lenox down to crafts show finds - I really love them all.

But I do not look forward to this day each year when the boxes come upstairs and I am faced with the task of taking everything out of wrappings and crates to find places to put everything. It's a daunting job that has fallen to me alone for a few years now, but particularly this year it seems. Kind of overwhelming thinking about getting up tomorrow to face those boxes and all the work they represent. But when all is finally put into place, I will sit in my yellow striped chair in the living room looking at my fragrant real tree all decked out and sigh a bit, happy for a moment of quiet after all the work of putting everything up. I'll admire my handiwork and try not to think about January 6th and having to take it all down again for storage.