Wrapping Christmas up

This weekend was time, finally, to put the Christmas decorations away.  Our tree is made of metal, so it wasn't that we had needles all over the carpet -- it's just that the wonder of the lights at night seems to have ebbed.  That, and we've got to make space for the Valentine tree.

The Christmas tree, decorated two months ago.

Our lights go all over the living room and up the stairs to the second floor.  To store them away so they're not tangled when I pull them back out next year, I get a piece of sturdy cardboard and cut little notches in it for the cord plugs.

I'm going to toss the blue box
and use the ugly brown piece of cardboard instead.

Then I wrap the lights around the cardboard, tucking the ends into the notches.

This is what I use the cardboard for -- to keep the cord untangled.

And this is how I wrapped Christmas up.

Here's the stack of decorations, ready to go downstairs, in front of a bare tree.  It's just a little sad and dark now.