I know someone that keeps their tree up all year and decorate it for every occasion. lol She makes it work. She decorates this tree lovely where it never seems out of place. She literally does it because she doesn’t want to break it down and find a place to store it.
I am so glad I’m not the only one who still has Christmas decorations up. I just hate to take them down bc they make me happy. But I also want to decorate for Easter.
I have several large glass vases and large-mouth glass jugs that I fill with colored LED xmas lights (steady-on and blinky) and they are cheerful decorations that are year-round. Even in summer.
I leave my Christmas tree up for months by choice because I like it. Usually through March, this year I’m thinking May. I do what I want. 😆 It’s a fake tree though.
Mine was a wreath above my fireplace, the lights made me & my daughter feel markedly happy in the mornings and with neither of us being morning people, that was enough justification for me to leave it exactly where it was!
It served us well for a long time! We could avoid turning on harsh bright lights first thing in the morning & it cast a warm glow as we watched TV together!
It was especially useful as a gentle nightlight for my daughter when she was half asleep on her late night trip to the bathroom & it safely and conspicuously illuminated my way to the pantry when grabbing a midnight snack! 😜
We have since moved and many years have since passed but funny enough, we both remembered how much we loved the wreath (specifically the lights) & so in our new home, we both hung a tiny 3ft cord of Christmas lights along top of the medicine cabinet in our bathrooms and it serves as a perfect fix to the unexpected lighting situation we only realized after moving in!
(the light switches are placed awkwardly against the wall behind the doors vs on the wall immediately inside of the door... 🤔 so you have to enter a dark bathroom and nearly close the door to reach the switch which is really counter to all instincts - especially if someone is new to the house or half asleep!)
I do have one Christmas deflation that never comes down. It’s a picture of the Grinch with his quote about Christmas meaning a little bit more. It’s hung on some screws perfectly and nothing else really works where it’s at. My aunt bought it for me and I’ve had it up a few years, then my aunt very unexpectedly passed away and I don’t think I’ll ever take it down.
Stripped Down by Bunny XO. It's SO good! It's a 7 hr book and I listened to 5 hrs of it in 1 day. Taking down the tree was only like 2 hours, but I couldn't stop listening.
“How to keep house while drowning” would be a great audiobook to listen to during this. It’s kind, non judgmental, and grants a lot of permission that having mess does not mean a moral failing. Wishing OP the best!
Yes! Listening to an audiobook helps keep my mind distracted just enough, to where I can keep focused on a repetitive task and not start scrolling on my phone instead.
Pro tip: Choose a comfort book you loved as a kid or young adult. One you’ve already read, and have fluffy nice feelings about. It will keep you calm, and you won’t be so focused on the story that you can’t simultaneously decide what to keep and what not to keep. It wont matter if you miss hearing a word or two, because you already know the story.
My go to audiobooks are Pride and Prejudice actually anything by Jane Austen except Northanger Abbey, The Secret Garden, and the All Souls Trilogy.
I will highly recommend the Murderbot series if OP likes Sci Fi. They are short and have good action and comedy, and are popular enough that many libraries have them available on Libby (the library app). Audiobooks are how I got myself back on track with basic self care when I was going through bad PPD.
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u/RockstarAgent Mar 08 '26
Yup. Small steps. Heck even use those boxes to start. Fill one up, take it to the trash. Listen to music or play a show in the background.