1 Day Early

I really try and hold off on decorating, baking, listening, reading anything Christmas until December 1. But I'm stuck in today with a croupy/asthma/snotty JB and he and Miss M are perfectly content to play! (the first Christmas miracle of the season)

Since the day is wide-open I decided to finish taking down all the fall stuff, throw out the moldy gourds and smooshy pumpkins, wash all the fall linens (yeah, by fall linens I mean 3 dish towels with pumpkins, turkey or candy corn on them, linen just sounds soooo Martha), and put them away. Now, by away I mean I put them in their crate where they will sit at the bottom of the attic steps until Prince Charming gets around to putting them away. It could be tonight...or it could be March 21 (I'm betting on March but praying for tonight!!).

I do a couple of quirky things with decorations and packing them up. First, I keep all my Children's Lit that goes with the season/holiday in the box with the decorations. That way I can use them each year and don't have to search like a mad woman through hundreds of titles in storage. I also put their craft projects from that season in the box. Often, when I open it up the next year I just chuck them, but it puts a smile on my face when I open the box and there are little treasures from the previous year. I do keep a few things, like all the hand turkeys with the year written on the back. It's cute to see their hand grow and what they were thankful for that year. And finally I line the bottom and the top of the crate with that seasons throw blankets...yes, I have seasonal throw blankets...apparently they are a great gift for teachers ;)

So it's all packed up ready to go...Christmas decorations will come down tonight, I hope, and go up over the next few days. But I did cheat a little, the Christmas music is playing one day early and I LOVE IT!!

Off to dig out some red and green sprinkles!!