Getting Older Requires Shortcuts. For over three decades I have been putting up a Christmas Tree and taking down a Christmas Tree. Many of those years it has been last minute or I have been so busy after Christmas that it stayed up for days after I wanted it down.
Getting Older Requires Shortcuts. Last year we got a little smaller tree because we got tired of moving a good part of our furniture to the basement to make room for the tree. The lights on the old tree had started to burn out and we had supplemented with additional strings of lights in the bare spots. This was taking too much time and work. The kids are all gone and it is all left to my husband and me and it has become real work and not so much enjoyment anymore.
When we put the ornaments on this year I paid special attention to make them very secure to the tree so my energetic grandsons would not knock any of them off as they have done in the past. I put every ornament on that was special to me so the tree was covered in all my favorites. It took several hours to do this. I really liked the way it looked.
Getting Older Requires Shortcuts. When it came time to take it down I was still remembering like yesterday all the hard work that went into decorating it a few weeks earlier. So I had a brilliant idea. Why not remove the star off the top and carefully wrap the tree in sheets to preserve for next year? After careful consideration I decided it would work and the tree could be stored in the basement fully decorated.
I took a fitted sheet and cupped one of the corners over the top. I gently cupped the bottom and secured all of it at the edges with clothes pins. The entire tree was covered and if any ornaments fell during transporting it to the basement, they would be captured in the bottom of the cupped sheet. It worked. The tree is sitting upright in a corner of the basement, covered so no dust will settle on the tree or ornaments, awaiting its time to again adorn my living room.
Getting Older Requires Shortcuts. All in all the time to wrap, secure, transport and reestablish the living room to pre-tree existence was 15 minutes. Not bad, and I can say I am really looking forward to Christmas next year. In fact I may put my tree up a little early if I can find an extra fifteen minutes in my schedule.
Maybe it sounds a little lazy but Getting Older Requires Shortcuts.
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