Whipping Your House into New Year’s Shape

It’s not quite fair of me to write this newsletter. Not yet, anyway. Normally one to be completely on top of this kind of thing, I’m nowhere near ready this year. I have a litany of wonderful excuses—none of which you want to hear—but wonderful excuses they are and hey, one’s reality is one’s reality after all! And my reality this month left no room for un-decorating after the Holidays. So whipping my house into New Year’s shape is, today, a hypothetical at best. Heck: my Christmas tree still stands (proudly, I might add) in my foyer; angels and Father Christmases still line my kitchen window seat; and candles still stay light in every window (which, frankly, this year are staying up until Easter. But that’s another Newsletter). Friends are coming in from out-of-state next weekend (no time to whip things into shape before then either). So, looking at February for me is about the best I can do (and if this gives you liberty to lag along with me, well, that’s what rocket mom friends are for!)


But hypothetically or for real, it’s time to at least start thinking of de-constructing your home’s Holiday wonderland. Time to throw out the gingerbread houses and un-eaten cookies. Time to put all of those hard-to-find-home-for gifts away. Time to read the Christmas cards one last time and organize the photos.


So some thoughts:
• The first thing to come down is the tree (obviously). Ours is a 12’ tall artificial one (our kids have allergies to the real thing). It could stay up year round (and one year it really did. Funny story: it was in my living room and was easily visible to anyone passing by as I kept it lit most of the day and we lived on a very busy street. One night in May—so like five full months after Christmas—my pharmacist, who still made house calls—called and asked if I knew that my Christmas tree was in my living room. Duh?!? Like I could walk through my house and miss it….Had no time that year to take it down so left it up all year. Hmmmm. Looking like a great idea this year, too. ) But if you’re less eccentric than I, take the thing down, put all the ornaments in green and red plastic boxes so you’ll be able to find them next year, and get it all neatly put away and stacked in your attic.


• Next, dismantle any of the artificial greenery and pinecones or anything else that you might find at your local greenhouse (which is artificial) and wrap it up in plastic boxes or plastic bags and keep it all organized together. I take all of this stuff down, blow off the dust, wrap them in clear plastic garbage bags with a tight twist tie, and put them in my garage on a high shelf so that they’re airtight and out of sight until the next year.


• Pull down all of the Christmas things that cannot stay up as “winter decorations.” Santas should come down. Angels could stay out forever. This could be a tough call; if your house is like mine, once everything comes down, the house looks like it just had a bad haircut. So if you need to leave a few things up, so be it. The decorating police will probably cut you some slack.


• Lastly, organize those cards and photos. My girlfriend, Leslie, wrote to me that she takes all of her cards and organizes them by size; she also takes the photos and punches a hole in the corner and strings a ribbon through, making a nice and neat little keepsake in the process. When they visit friends throughout the year, she can easily pull out the photos to remind the kids who they are going to see. She also uses the opportunity to take the cards and photos to her computer where she inputs and updates the names of the kids. I take those same cards and pitch them (sorry!) but I do save every single photo. I store them by year in the hopes that one day when my hair is white I’ll drink herbal tea and eat crumpets in my conservatory and fill up archivally-correct books with all of them. In chronological order of course.


And when you’re all done doing this wonderful little yearly ritual, get out the vacuum cleaner and whisk away all of the dirt. Dust, too, but only if you’re in the mood. Make yourself an espresso and if you happen to have a cookie in the house, treat yourself to one of those, too. Whipping—houses or heavy cream or thighs-carrying-extra-Christmas-weight for that matter—requires a lot of energy.


Blessings on your week,


Carolina