Out on the curb....

That's where our big tree is at the moment-- on the curb, waiting for tomorrow morning's trash truck. All the ornaments are packed away and counting down the days till next Christmas-- which will be here in a heart-beat, believe it or not.

I was just going to un-decorate the big tree, but once I got started... plus yesterday and today were both cold, cloudy, rainy days. Perfect two days for de-Christmasing (is that a real word?) the house. All the little trees are up on the long shelf in the closet... pink, red and gold, green and red, green and ivory, gold feather tree, and a blue and silver. Plus the little beaded tree, the very tall contemporary-beaded tree, the feather tree with seashells, the teacup tree, the green tree with the International dolls and candy canes, the porcelain tree with the tiny red birds, the tree with the velvet cardinals, the tiny tree trimmed with old costume jewelry and set into a teacup, and the cone-shaped tree covered in white pearls. And the 1950s aluminum tree is packed away in its box-- I happened to look at the bottom of that box and the original price of $5.88 was written in pencil. Less than six dollars for that glorious tree when it was first purchased, then we found it for $35 years ago in a resale shop..... and we saw them for sale in the antique shops a couple of weeks ago, for hundreds of dollars.

I left up all the gold stars in the dining room, and the mantel in the living room is still covered with all the stars-- looks festive for New Year's Eve. Plus I took out the box of New Year's decorations and hung up all the silver "disco" balls in the dining room. We had talked about hosting a dinner here for New Year's Eve, but then never got around to inviting anyone. Seems like we've had everyone we know over here all during the month of December. I think I'm all invited out, at least until we (I) start getting ready for the Valentine's party.

The weather turned cold again..... from nearly 80 a couple of days ago to barely 60 during the day, and down to 48 at night. Too cold for me to keep the cats on the screen-porch, so they were all in here last night. Translation: they wake me up before dawn. Or at least one of them does, which wakes up the other two.

I wish I had thought to attach that little pedometer to my slacks today and yesterday as I took down the Christmas decorations. Seems like all I've done for the past couple of days is walk from one end of the house to the other, from closet to closet, out to the garage for a few extra boxes, back to the closets, then walked around the house deciding what goes where. (Just who put up all those Christmas trees, Santas, and angels in the first place?)

According to my spell-check thing in this machine, "de-Christmasing" is not a word. Well, get over that..... I've decided it's a word, at least right here.