That was fun! Now, who is going to clean this mess up?

No, I'm serious. Who is going to clean this mess up? Sigh.

Happy New Year!

We had a great vacation. I hope your family had a fun Christmas holiday too! We played board games; we played Wii; and we even went to the beach. But now it's time to get back to work.

If your family is anything like my family, which it's probably not, I mean what are the odds that there could be another family quite that cool, then you haven't taken down your Christmas tree yet. Of course, you are waiting until tomorrow or Wednesday for the Epiphany! That means I've caught you just in time to talk about how to organize your ornaments for next year! (Since in the U.S., Epiphany was officially celebrated yesterday, I felt it was acceptable to start putting everything away today except my manger scene. I will wait to put away on Wednesday. Yes, we might be a little traditional.)

It was actually my kids that let me know that we needed to take the extra time to put the ornaments and other Christmas supplies away properly. They didn't want to rush the job because they knew that they would just be paying the price next year. It's a good point. It does make it harder to find things. With a little extra care your ornaments can last for many years.

This year I decided that wherever possibly I was eliminating cardboard boxes. I got some plastic bins and in one case, Phil spent the extra money and bought me an ornament organizer. I would like to add another one next year too. For this year, I put the kids ornaments in the one he bought for me.

When I packed away my ornaments, I wrapped them in in tissue paper and then tucked them inside a plastic sandwich bag. And before you start with me that all this plastic doesn't sound very green to you...if any of you environmentalists would like to come and save the mice that have been known to come and live in my attic from my broom, feel free! Otherwise, I'll be saving my ornaments from their teeth, thank you very much!

I have the bins separated by type. There are bins for ornaments, bins for my village, a bin for garlands, a bin for lights, and on and on. This way when I send the boys up into the attic they will be able to find exactly what I am looking for with ease.

And the best part was they thought of it all themselves, even though it meant that they spend all extra time!