Putting Away Christmas

I am one of those fortunate few who didn't have to go back to work today. My company gave us all the day off and I used the extra time to put away Christmas. While I waited for my son to come over so we could go skiing, I took down all of the Christmas lights on the outside of my house. Then when we returned from skiing, I continued to put things away.

One nice thing about Christmas is that you get all sorts of new stuff. The problem with that is that you have to find a place for everything. One tactic I have employed is getting rid of old stuff. Yesterday my wife and I went through the garage and found a bunch of boxes that we no longer need. We filled our large 100-gallon recycle bin with broken down boxes and Styrofoam. Today I continued cleaning things out. I realized that a wire TV antenna works better for local television stations than cable. I pulled little digital cable receivers from my bedroom and wife's sewing room so I could set up plain-old-wire-TV antennas. Some people used to call them rabbit-ears. I still have a large cable box in my TV room. This works for us because we really only watch the local news in the other rooms. In removing the small cable receivers, I also discovered I had stashed a bunch of spare stuff behind the TV's. I probably pulled out half a dozen extra cables from my bedroom alone. I also rearranged my PS4 and soundbar in the bedroom. The soundbar is one of those Christmas gifts I had to find a place for and now it looks like it belongs.

This evening I have to find a place for my wife's new record player. I had no idea where my wife could put it. Her sewing room is full of stuff and there is no room in there. I asked my wife where she wanted it and she gave me a great place. So now I will make room for it in my TV room.

The only thing left from Christmas that I have to find a place for is my new climbing rope. Fortunately it is small and I can store it on the floor in my closet. I just need to push it under where my pants hang and it should be out of the way. I just need to remember I put it there when I go to use it as it is well hidden.