13 January 2007

Tree in Hibernation

Aieeee! It took two and a half hours to take the tree down, get it downstairs (where it's taking up a lot more space than I'd hoped) under plastic, and put the glider rocker back in place. I'm pooped. I don't know how the folks at Christmas to the Max (Melody has 52 trees!) do it. All the ornaments that had string ties on them now have hooks (thank God; I hate string ties on ornaments), the glass stuff is either in its own box (the regular Woolworth-type glass ornaments) or in an old Hallmark box, and the plastic stuff is in Ziplock bags laid flat in the storage container.

I feel decadent. I actually ripped the tinsel off and threw it away. They have made mylar tinsel since I was a kid, because of the lead hazard in the original icicles, but they are making it even thinner today; it's almost as fine as hair. I went crazy picking it off a 4 1/2 foot tree and hanging it back on the cardboard piece they provide in the icicle box; I wasn't going to try to do it with tinsel from a six-foot tree!

I bought three boxes of icicles at Walgreen's on half price after Christmas, so I have tinsel. I just feel my frugal mom is looking down on me and shaking an index finger at me and clucking! :-)

The autumn-theme things are back on the mantel, but I have some snow-themed things on the divider and scattered around the room, in the dining room, and in the foyer. It seems incongruous since it's 69° degrees outside, the windows are all thrown open with the fans going full blast, and it smells like bloody spring outside!

The carpet is still scattered with artificial needles, bits of tinsel and other Christmas flotsam, but it can wait until Monday if it has to, since it's Martin Luther King Day. Right now I'm ready for a good lunch. Hey, James, wanna go to Longhorn?

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