2 January 2023

Happy New Year.  We had a lovely holiday filled with lots of cooking, slicing off the top layer of skin on my big toe on Christmas Eve, and an easy lunch after opening packages with my daughter and her family and my granddaughter and boyfriend.  It was such a treat to share a bottle of wine with the 21 year old.  A bit strange too.  Face timing with Florida is always a chaotic treat with everyone talking over every one else.  It was the only way we could open packages together so I will take it.

Then an eve before New Years Eve dinner with my sister and brother and law wrapped up the entertaining season.  Whew what a whirlwind.  I feel like I’ve been cooking and rearranging dinner tables for weeks.  Well I have been but it was long over do, between pandemics and renovations it’s been awhile.  I have to say it felt really good to have people in my home again.

But, what goes up must come down!!!  I have figured out over the years that something that takes 3 weeks to go up is not going to come down in a day or two.  Ok well I was binge watching West Wing in between pulling stuff down and you know, you do get side tracked.  I even stayed up until 2:00 this morning to try to see the last episode and at 2:00 AM I just gave up.  Couldn’t do it.  So after putzing around with greens removal, dish organization, and trying to figure out where I tucked this or that I decided to be diligent today.

Yesterday I couldn’t find one of my under bed storage boxes.  I had the lid but couldn’t find the box.  Searched everywhere even the darkest recesses of the closet under the stairs where there is no light.  Using the handy flashlight ap on my phone I emptied out most of the closet so I could get back there and make the turn.  Nope no box.  Now besides the Christmas mess I have the mess from the emptied out closet!  Anyway how do you loose a box that big.  I even sent a text off to the husband who was deer hunting.  Although he had lots of suggestions I’de already checked the usual spots.

So today knowing I was going to have to go out and get a couple of storage boxes I went forth with great determination.  Got the boxes purchased and brought home, I started to organize the greens that were to be placed in the boxes.  These are the upstairs greens that I will use next year, you guessed it, up stairs.  I always organize by where they will be placed the following year and make sure that type is with type.  

I like to use 2 gal ziplock storage bags for this purpose.  That way all like stems are together and I’m not having to open several boxes to try and find a matching stem. It just makes it that much easier in the sorting next year.  If you would like to see how I store Christmas decor you can read about it here What Makes the Magic. As I’m looking at the Christmas Tree which is sitting on the window seat full of ornaments I remembered where I stashed the box.  It’s in the window seat!  Of course it is.  Well, now I know I can return at least one of the boxes but this did mean I had to attack the Christmas tree a bit sooner.

In storing the Christmas ornaments I decided to try Stacy Ling’s from Bricksn’Blooms TicToc  hack.  She saw someone layer the breakables in foam, from a mattress pad in the box.  

I always individually wrap all the Radkos and other breakable ornaments of which most of mine are.  Let me just say this was a game changer.  I happened to have a sheet of foam left over from another project so I just used that.  It took a while to cut out all the slabs to fit into the boxes but I can see this is going to be so much easier.  

I could fit so many more ornaments in the box.  That really surprised me.  I thought the foam would take up a lot of room but turns out tissue takes up way more.  I did put a layer of white tissue paper on each piece of foam.  I don’t know if that will do any good, but I am concerned about off gassing damaging the colors of the ornaments.  

Stay tuned I’ll let you know next year when I get the ornaments out again. 

Hopefully I’ll have this mess cleaned up in a couple more days.  Tomorrow is a day working the online sales at the thrift shop.

I’ll leave you with a couple more tables from the holiday.  One is Christmas Day, I just swapped out the table runner and dishes but used a lot of the same accessories I had been using all season.  Vintage Spode Christmas Tree on my Pottery Barn table runner I picked up a couple of years ago.  You can find it here Table Runner.  Just love the embroidery on this runner.  I don’t care that it has been around for awhile.

This Vintage Duncan Royal Figurine is offering up Wassail and I’ve really enjoyed him this season.  His hand painted face is so pure.

The eve before New Years Eve table, although it’s not your typical NYE table with black, gold and streamers.  Just a simple woodland table scape with favorites.

Same PB runner now I added William Sonoma Woodland Berry Dishes which are now on sale of course.

Removing the Santa Claus’ I added some bottle brush trees and my embroidered napkins that I did last year, a couple of mercury glass ornaments and called it a day.

These tables were pretty simple to throw together because the supporting characters were already in play.  I just had to switch out a couple of things.

And that’s a wrap for my very humble abode and Christmas 2022.  Love the way my Gabriel and Star are showing in the window on Christmas night.

Thanks for stopping

Shelley