We always put off taking down the Christmas decorations, including the tree. I know we’re not alone.
Everything came down this morning, and in less than an hour. My wife is very organized when it comes to Christmas decor going up and coming down. My daughter and I basically followed orders.
In no time, I had all the boxes packed back into a basement closet and the tree out on the front yard by the curb (don’t worry, Greenies, I still plan to take it to the yard waste depot).
But now there’s that post-holiday decor void. Sure, the house is back to normal, but we’ve just swept away the last of the holidays as our daughter took the broom to our living room floor.
Some might think Jan. 12 is a little late to pull down the decorations. Bah! I’m the guy who once kept a fall display on my front porch until spring (I wasn’t using the porch through the winter, so no big deal, right?).
I think the earliest we ever got our Christmas decorations squared away one year was Jan. 2. It did feel weird.
This time around, it felt right. But I was a bit worried about the tree. We purchased it in the second week of December from the Boy Scouts. In fact, it was up for a full month, to the day.
On top of this, we hadn’t watered it for two weeks, so I was worried the tree was going to drop all its needles, Charlie Brown style, as soon as I pulled it out of its base.
It did no such thing. Sure, it dropped a few needles, but it turned out there was still some water in the base, so the tree hadn’t gone thirsty (deep base and we had been watering it regularly until Boxing Day or so).
Well, everything’s back to normal, or as close to it as it can get around our house. At least for now…
As for the outdoors, I’ve still got the lights set on a timer. And the inflatable Rudolph is still inflated. Maybe I’ll pull his plug this afternoon. As for the lights, hmm. They are LED so they use very little electricity. And I see other homes in the neighbourhood that have left theirs up for now. We shall see.
