Christmas box(ed)

The other night I took down all the Christmas decorations, leaving out only the few pieces that are "winter" as opposed to "holiday" themed. I hadn't put out even half of what I own, which made the take down fairly easy.

But nothing is ever really easy...since I don't intend to be in this flat by next Christmas, it seemed fitting to take the time now to go through all the decorations, and sort them into the toss, give away and pack away piles. The actual process didn't take all that long, even with the secure packing up for moving I did on the things I kept.

The store-bought glass ornaments were easy to sort through: toss out those that had chips, scratches and scorched spots, then donate the boxes no longer to my taste. But deciding what to do with gifted and handmade ornaments was a bit trickier.  sorting through the boxes was a bit like picking through my own history.

The oldest dated ornament I found is from 1972 - a clay santa cast and painted by my aunt, attested to by the "GE - 72" carved in the back. Then there are the plethora of "Teacher" ornaments that were gifts from the sweet two year olds in my Sunday School classes in the early eighties (David, whose family is coming over for dinner tonight, was one of those children!). It's hard to part with those.

The picture above is part of the boxful of gee-gaws I kept. Everything in the picture was a gift - some from as far away as England (the fleur-de-lis and the horse, gifts from a quilting pen pal).  Not shown is the box of plaster ornaments my mother forced encouraged my sister and I to paint when I was thirteen or so.  Mice in stockings, hot air balloons, santas, wreaths, lions...packed snugly for the move.  I've not used them since my mom  foisted them on me gave them to me when she moved to the condo eight years or so ago; still, I can't bear quite yet to part with them.

Garland, extra lights, candle rings...all sorted, tagged, bagged and packed.  A medium box and a big bag of things to take to Goodwill sit in my foyer.  I've gained room on the closet shelf, plus one of the medium drawers and over half a big drawer in the buffet (I have rather odd storage spaces in this flat).

Strange, but like the extra space, I feel a bit...empty.