Goodbye Christma

I hate when this time of year roles around. No, I don't mean January, I love January because in our family it's Birthday Month (Me, Mom, Grandma, Papa, a cousin and an aunt). The specific time of year I am referring to is the "time to pack up Christmas" weekend. It's not only a pain to take everything down and package it away carefully like I do every year because I always think, "what if we move and I didn't pack things carefully?" but the house always looks so empty without the decorations.

But, according to society, it really should come down by New Years, so I guess the 6th is the latest I can hang on. So I started dismantling when I realized, oh no! I never showed you my back door entrance! I'm exceptionally proud of it because these are fresh garlands that I made. Check it out:

extra greens courtesy of the 3 feet I had to cut off the tree so that it would fit in our house

these pine-cones are still attached to the sticks, they came down in the freak Halloween snow storm

The lanterns (from my wedding) used to have Christmas Balls in them, but those got packed away on Wednesday

My Papa cut the birch logs on his property in Maine. Emil drilled the holes for those candles

yes, I broke down and bought 3 of these from Pottery Barn

Hey there, cute dogs!

So now you've seen my back entrance. I decided to put some effort in this year on the back entrance because its where 99.99% of people who visit actually come into our house. Now the pressure is on for me to repeat next year. It shouldn't be a problem since I have some genetic mutation that causes me to pick out Christmas trees that are too big for my house.

Speaking of big trees, here's a picture of the tree that was in my parent's house this year.

What a monster!? Oh well, I guess I should stop procrastinating and start taking things down. Goodbye Christmas, see you again in 11 months!