Now that Christmas is over, I'm left trying to find my house again. I'd love to say that in the couple of days around Christmas things got a little out of hand with all the cooking and presents from different celebrations, but that would be a complete lie. My house is far more than a little out of hand at this point, and it started far before Christmas. I just couldn't seem to get on top of it and stay on top of it, and since we haven't had a lot of house guests, it hasn't really been an issue. But now, I can't put it off any longer. I've got my work cut out for me.
First, the Christmas stuff has got to go. According to Facebook, my most important source for information, a lot of you take the tree down right away. December 26 comes and it's gone. I like to keep it up a bit longer to drag out that Christmas feeling until New Year's. But this was our first year to not use the ugly, yet wonderfully effective Giant Gate Around the Tree, and I didn't like it one bit. Despite the fact that I have a three year old, I do not have a kid-friendly Christmas tree and I don't care. It's a beautiful, winter wonderland-themed fir (real) with mostly silver and blue ornaments, snow flakes, icicles and my pièce de résistance, these gorgeous feather garlands called snow drifts. It is lovely, if I do say so myself. This year, with a curious three year old and no gate, we had more than a few casualties. We lost one or two while decorating the tree--no biggie. We lost another when the kiddo decided to throw the Christmas ball against our tile fireplace to see if it would bounce--biggie. We lost another when she got a little plastic golf club in a kids' meal and used it to smash an ornament to pieces--don't even get me started. We lost several others through the weeks as she enjoyed decorating and redecorating the tree. The extra tree that I made "her" tree did no good. It's not the end of the world, but let's hope we don't lose this many each year. I don't mind buying a few new ornaments, but I do mind cleaning up millions of glass shards every couple of days. The tree comes down tomorrow. Here is one last look at it in all it's drooping glory. Yes, I purposely cut off the bottom of the tree because that's the part the toddler did and it's a bit...uneven. The picture doesn't quite do it justice and well, this year's version is kind of a disgrace to previous years' versions, but hey, this is it.
And a close up of said pièce de résistance (thanks Wikipedia for providing the correct accents).
Once the Christmas stuff is gone, I need to do some serious cleaning. Kitchen, bathrooms, every room. I seriously miss the cleaning crew I used to have come in once a month to do the down and dirty cleaning. It's just such a mess right now and trying to figure out how to tackle it is completely overwhelming. I'll just take it one room at a time.
Next, we start a whole-house reorganization. Really, that's what makes everything else seem so daunting. It's the fact that even after I get the house clean, I'm just going to tear it up again.
So, that's what I'm facing over the next week and well, probably month or so. But, for my immediate future, I need to come up with a good New Year's resolution. My husband didn't seem to think the whole-house re-org was much of a resolution. My resolution for 2011 was to send more cards. Snail mail cards. Birthday cards, sympathy cards, Easter cards, whatever. And as of December 29, I can say I did a pretty good job. It's probably the first New Year's resolution I've ever kept, so good for me. Could that be my next resolution? Just to keep my resolution? Oh wait, there has to be a real resolution before that.
Anyhow, here's to clean houses and making New Year's resolutions you can keep. Got any good ones I can steal?
