CKE²: Christmas Clean-up

This post is probably coming a little late for most of you, but I was cleaning up all of our Christmas stuff and thought it would be fun to share a few tidbits with everyone.

I got this really good idea from The Happy Housewife [she's one of my favorite bloggers ;o)]. She had this suggestion for storing Christmas lights. I gave it a try and here are my results:

I had this really sturdy foam board laying around form a little shopping cart we bought Elliot for her birthday and it worked really well. I'm happy that all of my lights are neatly wrapped up and stored in their container for next year. I'm excited for next year when I will get to unravel my lights and not fight with them as I usually do!

I was also excited this year because I managed to keep both our live (one cut, one rooted) Christmas trees alive this year. In the 12 years I have been buying and keeping a live, cut or rooted, tree in my house, I have never kept it from drying out and losing all of it's needles (okay, maybe not ALL, but it sure seems like it) within the first week of having it in the house.

I think I finally figured out the trick. I may be wrong, but it seems like you have to water it about three times a day for several days after it is freshly cut and placed in the house. After those first few days, once a day or so seems to be more than enough, but I think those first days are crucial in keep the tree from drying out.

And here is my tree...

and the LACK of mess underneath! ;o)

And a couple of Pillow Pets, thanks to Elliot.

I was also feeling a little nostalgic while putting away my Hallmark ornament collection. I keep all of the boxes and stuffing for each ornament; and I take them out and put them back in every Christmas. This ensures that I do not accidentally leave one on the tree and throw it away with the tree. I think my little heart would break if that happened.

I can hardly believe I've been collecting them for 12 years.

I've collected an entire decades worth of the Collector's Series "Cool Decade." This is my collection for the '00 decade.

I hadn't even realized it until I was putting the ornaments away this year and noticed the Collector's Series is now called "Frosty Fun Decade." I wonder if my children will appreciate the collection when they are older???

I also collect and did collect the Hallmark ornament for each of my children's first five Christmases. I was a little sad when I realized that next year will already be Elliot's fifth Christmas and there will be no more children's ornaments to collect. (For now, anyway...)

Here is Emma's set of ornaments: