Christmas Organization

Although I had planned earlier in the month to try the "31 Days of Nothing" challenge again this year, I felt that my de-hoarding-home-clean-up project was important enough to spend money on.

I kept my more important Christmas stuff like the ornaments I've made, and the boy's made at school as kidlets, and that family have made or bought for me in a rubber tub.  The rest of the stuff is mostly in paper or plastic grocery bags.
I used to keep most of it stored out on the enclosed front porch I used as a storage room for many years, until I cleaned it out last year, then the stuff ended up turning an upstairs bedroom into another storage room, that I've been working on trying to get cleaned out.

I needed to be able to store my Christmas stuff in the attic, which I couldn't do without putting the stuff into rubber tubs to protect it. Last time I put stuff up there in boxes and bags, squirrels and/or mice pretty much destroyed everything.

So I went to Wally World and bought some tubs and hauled all my Christmas stuff down to sort through and pack away.  I thought I would get rid of some of it, but I ended up only letting 2 things go.
To give me credit, though, a couple of years ago when I cleaned out the carport storage room I let a lot more go. A lot more. Probably better than 90% of all the Christmas stuff I used to have.

And then I ran into Dollar General for a bag of cat food. And stepped into the danger zone. Christmas stuff, 70% off.  Now usually I'd scoff at 70% off, because I'm more of 90% off shopper, but 70% off $1.00 made some things 30¢ and they were worth 30¢! How could I possibly pass them up??

There were some rolls of ribbon, and some really cute little decorated houses packages I can put candied pecans or candy or some other kind of treat in for gifting next year.

The little bundles of metallic colored ribbon was only 15¢ each.

And that's why I usually stay out of the stores during January. I find too much stuff I think I need at prices I can't possibly pass up.

While emptying bags and sorting through stuff, I came across this lovely painted piece of slate rock I had no idea I had, where it came from, or who painted it for me. I need to ask my sister, it could have possibly been my brother-in-law's stepfather.  She asked me for some pieces of slate rock (my yard is full of them, we live in the slate-rock capital I think) for him to paint on, but I don't remember receiving a painted one from him.
The picture doesn't do it justice, it's really gorgeous and I'm not sure why I had it packed away rather than displayed.

*This post is boring, but I guess I needed to pat myself on the back for getting the Christmas stuff done. And encouragement to keep on keeping on.  The last thing I attempted to get through was some of the boys' old toys and games and I came to a complete stand-still.