Ah, gentle reader. The annual tradition continues. After we hurriedly put away the Christmas decorations in early January, we find some decorations that have escaped notice and need to be put away later. Since I cleaned the whole house this weekend, I think I got a pretty good handle on what was left behind this year.
The sleighbells on the door.
This is almost an annual tradition, and I think that we had them on the door for most of the year once.
I have mentioned the story of before, so I won’t bore you with it again. In addition to the stiffness of the belt leather holding it these days, we don’t hear them jingle because people don’t tend to come through our front door. We open the door once every couple of weeks for packages, but the number of guests to Nogglestead these days is not very large. And those who come often come through the garage.
The Winter/Christmas Village Buildings.
To be honest, perhaps my beautiful wife, who collected the tchotchkes whilst I wrestled with unwrapping the well-wrapt lights on the upstairs Christmas tree, did not recognize that these winter scenes were now Christmas decorations. After all, it’s possible she has noticed them before Christmas individually–I buy a Christmas decoration before we have the Christmas decorations out to cheer myself and to see if anyone notices, and I bought the church in 2024 and the coffee shop 2025. So she might have thought they were just part of the décor.
By the way, has anyone noticed? Well, as part of our actual Christmas decorations, I found a new tchotchke on the mantel which I’d never seen and didn’t acquire. So I think my oldest has noticed and added one of his own.
A couple of boxes for decorations.
I pulled these empty boxes when undecorating the tree. One of the boxes is for a Chewbacca ornament which I don’t know that I have ever seen (not the Easter Chewbacca, which did not come with a box). The other is a little hearth candle holder which I’ve seen, but is one of the decorations which I’ve not been eager to put out because of young children (no longer young) and kittens (no longer kittens, but still kittenish chaos on twelve paws).
I guess at some point, we put the decorations out, and when it came time for the rapid deChristmasification, we put the decorations away but not in their boxes.
You know, gentle reader, I think this year we will have an audit of our Christmas decorations. We have so many that do not actually get put out for one reason or another (or horizontal surfaces are limited and cat-patrolled). So perhaps we should sort them, divest ourselves of some, and make sure to properly box the ones we will keep. Properly box until the next time we take the decorations down.
A little oil lamp.
This little piece of unknown inheritance was located on the bookshelves behind the television, and when my wife swept the lower level, she did not look closely to the bookshelves since most of them are double-stuffed with books.
At any rate, they are all put away now. And as part of the housecleaning, I played a game of “Christmas ornament or cat toy?” Ah, gentle reader, as you know, to a cat, they are one and the same, which explains why sometimes Christmas ornaments are found months later in an opposite corner of the room from the Christmas tree. But, dang it, don’t they sometimes look the same. A little bell and a tailing ribbon. Uh…. No place for a hook, cat toy? I think I’ve answered correctly in all cases so far.
So this should be the annual Christmas Straggler post. But, as always, no guarantees. Stay tuned for further updates (if any).
(Previous Christmas Stragglers covered in 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021, ,2022, and 2023.)
