I like to decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving weekend but I waited an extra week this year as I just wasn’t ready. This year, I got to wondering how many bins of Christmas decorations the average American has accumulated over the decades? All the year’s I lived in a townhouse and celebrated Christmas with family elsewhere, I actually only had one bin of decorations. However, over the past 20 some years living in an actual house, I have somehow worked my way up to four bins of decorations. Other than a few items I actually love or that have meaning, I am pretty much sick of it all and would prefer to throw it all away and start over. It all looks worn or fake to me, probably the result of my journey into becoming a maker of handmade/handcrafted items and purchaser of other artists’ creative work.
After Paul pulled the bins down from the garage shelves, I made quick work of riffling through the bins pulling out only about half of the items to “deck our halls” inside and out. I find great satisfaction in getting the job done in about an hour, maybe two if you include hanging lights on our outdoor walkway and porch railing. Unfortunately, this year we couldn’t seem to locate our lights which Paul laboriously wrapped around pieces of cardboard last year to prevent the inevitable annual tangle. There seem to be a few other items related to lights that have also gone missing so it’s back to culling through the garage and storage shed tomorrow. Oh, and I don’t know about you, but I keep husband Paul out of most of the decorating as it would take twice as long if I enlisted him and lead to extra squabbles we don’t need. Bad enough we almost came to blows trying to wind one measly strand of lights around a smallish indoor tree today.
I am sure most folks reading this have a lifetime of family memories tucked away in many more bins of Christmas decorations than I do especially if you decorate both inside and outside your home. Maybe you still love the whole process but I bet there are many of you who are considering or already have simplified holiday decorating. One option is to try to gift all your decorations to the next generation but they don’t seem to want our old stuff which probably includes Christmas decorations. I am certain all of this is why our local thrift stores have so much space designated to seasonal holidays. Fortuitously , I was on a cleanout mission this weekend and made fast work of boxing/bagging up used dishes and table linens with candle/table decoration cleanout slated for next week. If I can keep the momentum going through the holidays, maybe I can lighten our Christmas decoration load after the first of the year; but that will only work if I stay away from the after Christmas sales at our local home goods stores. Anyway, happy holiday decorating!