34 Weeks of Clean - Week 1: Christmas Decorations

Well, the saying goes "Third Time is a Charm" so let's see how much truth there is to that..  This is my third attempt to participate in the 34 Weeks of Clean Challenge hosted by my friend Michele at Family, Faith and Fridays.  But, for this time around, I'm actually starting at the beginning - Week 1.  For whatever reason, I always get off track early on, either a particular challenge doesn't apply for me one week and then I totally forget to come back the following week or something else leads to me completely forgetting.. Or, sometimes, I admit, I just get discouraged and throw my hands up in the air.  I am determined that this time, I will NOT give up, I will make it 34 weeks.. Fingers crossed!!

For the first week, participants were asked to go ahead and bring down the Christmas decorations.

In case you don't know, we LOVE Christmas decorations, so there were lots of decorations to rid the house of.. LOL  With double strands of lights completely around the house, Christmas trees and lighted decorations throughout the yard,  and lighted garland and decorations inside as well, the dismantling of the holiday season in our home is a time-consuming process.

Before:   

During: 

The first strand taken down and coiled up and secured with a twist tie.  All bundles are then placed into a storage box that gets put on the shelf in our garage until next year. 

Charles gets to take care of the lights on the house, as I am way too short to reach them, even when standing on a chair. 

However, him being as tall as he is, he can just reach up and pull them off the hooks..

While Dad takes care of the lights, I get the fun of cleaning the trees that are outside and getting them packaged back up for next year.  One thing  is to go through and get all the pine needles and leaves and other debris off the tree and shake them out really week before boxing them back up. 

My poor box has seen better days.. Packaging tape for now, but I do believe next year I may buy a plastic storage box for this tree.  Everything then went to their designated spaces in the garage which I'm not taking a picture of because I am truly embarrassed by the state of my garage right now!!  I'f I make it to week 29, I'll allow you to see it ;)  lol 

And now the outside of the house is back to normal.   Looks too plain now!!! 

Now it was time to attack the inside..  Sadly, that meant it was time to box up the Christmas Tree. 

Three quarters of our Christmas ornaments are shatterproof so I'll be honestly, we just place them inside a huge plastic bin.  However, the bin we were using was a long flat bin, the type used to go underneath your bed.  And it never did work properly for holding all the ornaments. The lid wouldn't fit on it, and so it just stayed in our utility room collecting dust throughout the year as I wouldn't put them in the garage without a lid.  This year, I repurposed one of my husbands plastic bins to use for the ornaments because this one the lid could close AND it could fit on the shelf where the rest of the Christmas decorations go in the garage. 

 Getting all filed up.. (You can see the flat bin we previously used in the top corner). 

Once again, Charlie's height came in handy as he took down the lighted garland that we use on top of our entertainment center. 

And putting away the train that goes under the tree. 

And it's all gone :(   Well, except for that one red ball hanging above the crystal spider.. We made an agreement with Ashleigh that she could pick one ornament to leave out to hold on to the holiday during the winter season.   LOL  After a quick vacuum and a wipe down of the windowsills and the entertainment center, everything is back to pre-holiday status. 

 But my cat is not happy that the tree is gone.