Packing Up Christmas

 

On Wednesday, between turns to the laundry room in the basement, I also got some of my boxes for Christmas ornaments from my storage room up to the flat, and got started on gradually packing up Christmas. The first thing I did was to fit this little wooden tree and its tiny ornaments back in the right compartments - which is in itself like laying a puzzle...  

Next to be packed up were all the various Santas/gnomes spread out all over the flat. All too often I forget one or two, so I left that box open for a couple of days before I finally shut the lid on it today. The ones dancing on my bathroom wall were the last to jump in this time...

(They used to belong to my mum, who used to have them in her kitchen.)

Yesterday I said goodnight to all the angels and tucked those in; and today I've packed up the Nativity scene on the shelf in my study. (Cf post from 14 December.) The normal residents on that shelf have now reclaimed their usual places. (Only leightweight objects can be put on that shelf as it's not all that securely fastened to the wall...)

The watercolour underneath was painted by me 30 years ago. I seem to recall that I copied it "freehand" (not sketching first but just painting) from a photo in a magazine - maybe an advertisment. The 1990s was a period of my life when I also participated in various water colour classes now and then. (A major reason I've not kept it up is a later injury causing longlasting shoulder/arm  problems. I turned to photography instead, which became so much easier with digital cameras and computers - and blogging...)

My other little Christmas tree, electric candleholders and window stars still remain to be taken down over the next few days. Some textiles that I see more as "winter" than just Christmas will probably stay up for a while longer, though. (Like my red/white kitchen curtains, and some table runners.) 

The "traditional" date in Sweden to "throw out" Christmas is 13th January. Nowadays it varies a lot more. Back in my childhood, when most mothers were stay-at-home moms (housewives), it was common to have special children's parties on or around that date, before throwing out the Christmas tree. The Swedish word for it is julgransplundring, which literally means "plundering the Christmas tree". Originally, I think the tradition stems from a time when the Christmas trees were primarily decorated with edible things (cookies, apples, nuts etc). Not so common any more in the 1960s; but the party might still involve eating the gingerbread house, or the last of other cookies baked for the holidays. Games were played, and if there was room enough, one might dance around the tree. And it was also still part of the tradition that each child got a goodie bag to take home with them at the end of the party. 

Below is a photo of my very first such party. I'm the one to the right, with two bows in my hair. The year is 1960, I'm 5 years old and the photo is from the kitchen table in the house I had moved into some six months earlier with my parents. The three other girls lived in neighbouring houses, one next door and the two others across the street. Two of them a year older than me I think, and one a year younger. And it looks like my mum even baked a cake for the occasion.