If there’s one thing I truly dislike, it’s packing up Christmas. Somehow a majority of it falls to me. This year, I did get a boost from The Johnnie and Reedy Girl who un-decorated the tree. But I still had to pack up the tree. Bearded Brewer did hoist the tree up into the nether-regions of the storage shelf. But I had to make it an agenda item for us after a long, overly full day.

Now about that “fake” tree. Yes. It has no smell. But for my allergies, it’s the best bet. However, you might like to know that cats eat the needles of fake trees and hork just as easily. It happened to me and also a friend. Unbelievable.

But the rest of Christmas – the creches, the little Christmas pretties… yup. They all fall to me.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s fun to see Christmas re-appear each December. This year the decorations weren’t up very long because of our remodeling. So I kinda procrastinated until I knew. It’s time. I had images of being a blue-hair with my tree up in February and those electric dancing Santas by the fireplace. I do NOT have dancing Santas (for the record!) But we’re dangerously close to mid-January.

Tonight I started with one box. An easy one. Our “tree of animals” is a collection of the huggable Christmas things. Every year one of the grandma’s brought stuffed animals. Then I added one that was “too cute” not to have. A trip to Germany brought little bears in lederhosen. There’s a penguin who’s a puppet. And so on. They are now squished into a bin (they don’t seem to mind!) and the job of packing up Christmas has begun.

My inertia over packing also relates to the fact that so much of the house is still kinda in chaos. Half-finished move-ins are in several rooms. It’s overwhelming. Fixing this and sorting through that… and half my garage has furniture and boxes in it for someone else. I want to just call Salvation Army and take it all away.

But I started with just one box tonight. And it’s done! Progress!