Love it or Lose It, Holiday Style

It's a little early but we have family out Thanksgiving week and I like to have it festive, so I'm going through the Christmas decorations. And I'm wondering why I have so many.

When we started downsizing, I donated a lot of decorations I had but as with most things, they start slipping in under the radar. I worked in a soulsucking cubicle for years so I always decorated it for every holiday. Some of these I really liked so they made it to the cabin when I retired. Because I don't have room for day to day accessorizing I would often buy holiday decorations when I went shopping at places like Fredericksburg and Gruene. 

Gradually I accumulated 6 large storage boxes of Christmas decorations plus 3 wreath boxes. That's too much for tiny cabin decorating! Yesterday I interrupted Rick's firewood cutting to get him to hang a wreath in the bunkhouse for me. I told him if I ever had to get rid of most of my decorations the three wreaths would be the only things I kept. They're my favorites.

I've written about them before but in case you missed it, I made these when we first began downsizing some years back. The kids were gone and it wasn't as much fun decorating a tree as it used to be. And of course, we have no room for a tree in the cabin although we do put a little cedar tree on the porch. I had a lot of tree decorations but not all of them were special to me. So I kept my favorite ones, bought some artificial wreaths and made three themed wreaths. I store them with the decorations attached in wreath boxes and just hang them every year. Super easy and I love them! 

One of the storage boxes has outdoor lights so I'm going to keep those. We put them in a different place every year, sometimes on the cabin front porch, sometimes on the bunkhouse, sometimes on the screen porch. This year we have something different planned. I'l show y'all when we get it done! 

Looking at my wreaths, I thought "I'm going to donate the things I don't love, the things I kept just because I like them and I can find a place for them". Let someone else enjoy them. And get back to tiny cabin rules. If you don't love it or need it, let it go.

My mom and my Aunt Carolyn bought artificial Christmas trees when they first came out with the green "realistic" ones. It was before you could just take the tree out of the box, maybe put two parts together and be done, before they came with lights installed. You had to stick the branches in the frame. It was a bit of an ordeal, really, and it looked as realistic as you would expect green plastic to look.

After a few years my aunt upgraded to one of the newer ones but Mama loved her artificial tree! Every year, for at least 25 years, she would put it up with help from some of the kids who were around. Nothing much ever changed about it. Her face would light up, she would smile and say "25 years and it still looks good!" 

So my deciding factor on keeping decorations this year is going to be whether it can put that same look on my face that Mama had on hers when she looked at her tree. 

If it can't, maybe it can give that look to someone else.

(Photo above: Mama and my Mamaw. Two photos of Mama's tree, one with my grandnephew Caleb and granddaughter Natalie, one taken years before that with my Grandma Hattie and son Larry.)