It Had to Happen

The house is really empty now. I told TBG that we had to get some more stuff out right away and he looked at me as if I'd grown another head and wondered why in the world I thought there was something wrong with the simplicity that was our un-decorated home.

I am suffering from Decoration Deprivation. Though TBG volunteered, unsolicited, that the tree was beautiful and that I should feel free to leave it up as long as I pleased, the consensus seems to be that after Epiphany (I don't know what that is, but it seems to be important) your Christmas pillows are no longer adorable. Rather, they begin to speak to your need for clutter and your inability to clean up after yourself.

So, I began to dismantle the house.

This counter in the kitchen isn't used for anything (a design flaw to be rectified in my dreams).
I figured the stuff I stashed there could live there for a looooong time.

I never figured out how to water this kissing ball from Auntie M and family,
and it's dropping pieces of greenery on the ground with alarming frequency.
Off it comes...... maybe it will do better outdoors?

I spent much too much time arranging these guys.
They began to form little conversational groupings.
And that was when I knew that I was out-of-control.

I stopped watering the tree. I scheduled the cleaning ladies for Monday morning at 10; I was hiking at 8:30. I do much better with a deadline. Everything had to be boxed and off the inside floors before I went to sleep on Sunday night. I was only a few days past the commit-me-now deadline. There was play-off football on the tube (does anyone under 30 even know why tv is called the tube?). Life was good.

Boring football games make for good background noise while un-decorating. Soon, my tree was bare naked and I had this:

and this:

which needed to be wrapped and padded and placed in boxes for storage.

There's nothing sadder than piles of lights.

We've got double doors but they still weren't wide enough.
The broom or the power vac... that is the question.

By 10 o'clock Sunday night it was all put away....
Maybe not on the shelves or anywhere near the closet....
But at least it's all in boxes.

Which is more than I can say for Thanksgiving: