Christmas Revels

Each year, if we are in town, we go to see the Christmas Revels with my Aunt Bennie, and usually my cousin Rhian.

This year's theme was, "A Nordic Celebration of the Winter Solstice."

Dancing, caroling, drama, traditions, storytelling-- it's all such a feast for the eyes and ears. And every year they sing a couple of the same songs, which provides some feeling of familiar tradition while still giving the audience something new each year.

It's something we look forward to all year, and I feel so fortunate to live in an area that has a Revels program.

On the moving walkway, heading toward the holidays

It was Halloween Day, and I said to Sean, "Well. This is it. After today we are on the fast track to Christmas."

He didn't quite understand what I was talking about, but it's true. Once we've changed from the costume to the pjs and counted his candy bars there is a switch that gets flipped, and I feel like time moves a lot faster. Days whiz by and I'm in a whirr of Christmas decor in department stores, and non-stop Christmas music. I feel like I'm on one of those moving sidewalks you see at the airport. While I'm trying to take it all in, time is just moving faster than I can keep up.

Thanksgiving is a mere blip on the calendar.

I like my holidays in isolation. I don't want to be celebrating two holidays at once. My m.o. the past couple of years has been a boycott. I refused to participate in any Christmas anything until Thanksgiving had been properly celebrated.

But I'm feeling a shift this year.

Now I feel myself inching toward a place of acceptance. Maybe it's OK to have some pre-Christmas activities while we get ready for Thanksgiving Day.

Some of the cable channels have a countdown to Christmas on weekends. That means there are Christmas movies on already, and I found myself watching a couple of them on Sunday while I had an afternoon alone.

Christmas is so much fun. I've always wanted to prolong it as long as possible. Each year I longed for more time to soak up all the sights and sounds and good cheer. It was always so hard when I was a college student because exams fell in those first weeks of December. By the time I was able to focus on Christmas I only had about two weeks left of it.

I spent years as a single mom, rushing to get kids to school, get myself to work, zipping from one activity and place to the next. At Christmastime it seemed all was a blur.

My life is very different now.

So, maybe I'll try it this year to blend a little bit of Christmas with our Thanksgiving and see if it works for me.

Goodbye Christmas, hello storage bins

There was no star on top, but I placed this angel as close to the top as possible.

The big 18-foot Christmas tree was a thrill for our family, but I have to admit I was more than ready for it to come down.  Our tradition is to ring in the New Year around the Christmas tree. Technically I would even keep it up until Jan. 7, since Epiphany is Jan. 6, but I have never been able to wait that long to take down the tree. This year the tree was getting really dry just before New Year's Day. I spent the better part of a day getting all of the ornaments off of it and placed back in their boxes.

For years I made do with unacceptable holiday gift wrap and decoration organization. But there was one year, and I remember it well, when I decided the old cardboard box that I kept the Christmas wrapping paper in was just not doing it for me. I kept it in the back of the closet, and the good thing about it was the wrapping paper stood vertical in the box, but the exposed ends were all tattered, making those ends unusable.

I surveyed the disarray of bows, ribbons and tape, and I decided it was time for a change. Those things could never be found in the same place twice.

With determination and a blank check I made my way to the nearest retailer that sold storage bins. No matter the cost, my Christmas stash was going to be organized.

I still have all of those bins. I bought a smallish one with wheels, a really long one for the wrapping paper, a small pullout drawer for ribbons and tape, a few medium sized ones that varied in depth for the gift boxes, tissue paper, and gift bags.

The one bin I'm not really thrilled with is the wrapping paper box. I want a vertical one. The box I have keeps the paper relatively nice, but the rolls lay flat and the box is very unwieldy.

And for the ornaments? Well, see, I'm a recovering ornamentolic. And I'm particular about how some of them are stored. Actually, most of them. If they came in a box, I keep them in their original box. I have some Hallmark ornaments-- yes, OK, I have more than "some." But they were on sale! Those aren't the only ornaments I have. I do not discriminate. If I love it, I love it. (There was a time, not too long ago, that I had three trees in my house. One tree was all Santa ornaments, one was miniature with miniature ornaments, and the main tree...OK, I said recovering.)

I have really big bins for the ornaments. One main bin holds all of the ornaments that have their own box, and there are a couple of other bins that hold the ornaments that are wrapped in bubble wrap and tissue paper. I carefully pack them all away when we take down the tree, and I store them with love and care until I get the thrill of hanging them on the tree again.

And the beautiful thing about all of this is that Chuck understands. He really does. He loves everything Christmas. He spent a lot of time out in the cold in order to get the lights on the roof. I called him Clark on a couple of occasions, but I am really happy that he enjoys the season as much as I do.

And we wrap our lights in a similar way as well. No tangled lights here. I wrap them up kind of like an extension cord, and then I tie mine with a strong ribbon or corded ribbon. Chuck uses zip ties. It's the man version of a ribbon.

What storage methods do you use for your treasured Christmas ornaments and other decorations?

From the Internet
Which storage container do you prefer? This type or this one?

I couldn't resist sharing this catalog of ornaments...


And then there are these storage options as well.