Can We Please Have Spring Now?
This year I had full intentions of keeping up the cozy vibes at least through January, bare minimum. We took the ornaments off the tree and left it up as our “winter tree.” I kept all the greens on the stair rail and outside on the front porch and for a few days I pretended it was just so cozy and wonderful and winter.
Well, no one really needed to pretend it was winter. Virginia is so unpredictable. One winter it’s so mild you wonder if you will even get one snow. One day it’s twenty-eight degrees and two days later it’s sixty-two. But this year we’re definitely having winter. Two big snows already and a few days of sub-twenty temperatures.
But the cozy factor started failing before we even hit January 15. Suddenly the house seemed too full, too overtaken by falling needles, and too much everything.
It’s still winter outside, but we’ve reclaimed empty space and whites and neutrals and it feels like I can breathe again. I’m pretty sure hot chocolate tastes just as delicious with tulips on the table!
Do you decorate for winter or get rid of Christmas decor within days after it’s over?
For the first ten years or so of married life, we always kept the tree up until the weekend after my birthday (Jan. 9th), and then all the Christmas decorations went away. Then when we lived in Ohio for several years, one of my husband’s aunts told us she leaves up her decorations and calls them winter decoration, not just Christmas decorations. We liked that idea so while we lived in Ohio, that’s what we did; left our decorations up all during the winter time, until about March or April. Now that we’re back in South Carolina, it just doesn’t quite “feel” like winter decorations anymore so now we’re back to taking it all down mid to late January.
I can completely understand how the weather would make it feel so different! And I’ve heard Ohio gets so little sunshine which would make it easier to keep cozy lights up for a long time!