Most families engage in Christmas traditions. Some bake cookies together, read the Christmas story out of the bible, or go caroling. After all the festivities are over and traditions tucked in for a long winter’s nap until next time we are left with aftermath. The aftermath can be an overwhelming montage of wrapping paper, ribbons, and tinsel covering your newly carpeted floor. It is enough to denounce the celebration of Christmas until next year.
I have found the best way to combat the Christmas clutter is to make it part of the family tradition. Christmas day is not a day to clean. We do our best to clean at minimum to maximize the time we can spend together. We allow for boxes and gift wrap to adorn our living room floor as it were Christmas décor. We allow our table to be cluttered with board games and plates of cookies we snack on throughout the day. We will even allow all the gifts to remain near the tree until Christmas Cleaning Day begins.
Christmas Cleaning Day is the day after Christmas. It is the day we try to remove all the Christmas clutter save the tree and decorations. I would like to say this is a fun family day with all the trimmings. No, the tradition runs more like me complaining that the clutter will drive me to an early grave so we all need to pitch in and get rid of it. I may as well have a bull whip in my hand. Perhaps this is where an after Christmas tradition should begin. Perhaps we need to make this day more fun but if I make waves it only takes a short time get it all cleaned up and traditions are oh so long and purposeful.
Tree Take Down Day is our real after Christmas tradition. It mirrors the day we put up the tree. The day we put it up we bake cookies, make hot chocolate or punch, and put up the tree and watch Christmas cartoons. The kids each have their own ornaments to put up and we do it in order at least in the beginning. The day we take down the tree we bake our last batch of Christmas cookies, make hot chocolate or punch, watch our last Christmas shows and in purposeful order take the tree down. The purposeful order lasts about five minutes and then it becomes chaos. Thank goodness for a cup of hot cocoa after it is done.
Do you have any after Christmas family traditions?