On Saturday, I did 2 things: start taking the ornaments and garlands off the Christmas tree and feed stoves. I started doing the latter when I got up around 3AM and had to do it for the wood stove every 2 – 3 hours. The masonry heater went more like 4 – 5 hours.
It was -3F when I got up but the wind had come up in the night. Even with the storm windows (why we put them on in the first place), it was hard to keep the temperature inside at 70F, which is a bit lower than I like. Amazing how much difference the wind makes at these low temperatures.
My cleaning helper came and got all the boxes downstairs for putting away the ornaments. I got a late start on it, not until she came at 9AM, wasn’t moving too fast, but was determined to have the tree down by Sunday night. Once she finished that job, she set to finishing the dusting throughout the house.
It took me all day to get those things off and carefully packed away. I also had to find somewhere to put all the new ornaments I’d gotten.
Once I finished I made shrimp noodles for supper and watched Blue Planet II until 8:30PM, when I stoked the stoves again and went to bed.
On Sunday I will get all the lights off and get the tree ready to go to the attic. I have to make storage bags for it. Then I tackle checking the lights and replacing bulbs that are out and packing them away. I’ll need another box due to all the lights I got this year.
I also have to sort out all these boxes, above. They are the spare light bulbs for the lights. Those need to go upstairs and be put away. I may not get so far as putting away all the boxes.
My surrogate grandchild is coming at 1PM so they may get dragooned into helping me finish this mess…