How to store your Christmas tree

Are you superstitious?
If you are, then you probably know about the looming bad luck that comes with not taking your Christmas tree down by January 6th.

You see, there are 12 Days of Christmas and after that your tree must be down or suffer the wrath of bad karma, or voodoo or some other awful mojo.

I'm not really superstitious, but this is one that has been ingrained in me from the Goddess of Christmas - my Mom - and I figure, why tempt fate.

Today was my day to take down the tree and pack away all the ornaments and basically just clear out some of the mayhem we have been living with for the past 12 days.

  
There are all kinds of tree storage options out there that you can buy for storing and preserving your tree - but the price tags range from $50 to $200.
Really?  $200 for what really amounts to a bag?

Let me give you an $11 option:

A concrete form - or concrete tube - available at any hardware store for around $11.
This one is 8 feet long by 12" in diameter - if you can find a 15" or 18" diameter one, you'll find this MUCH easier.

Collapse your tree as flat as you can;

Then slide it into the concrete form - bottom first.

I couldn't get a photo of the "during" because it took Hubby and I both to hold the tube and stuff slide the tree in.

Here's the after though:

Our bottom section wouldn't quite fit - that's where the 18" version would have been ideal - but at least two out of the three parts are compacted, protected and easy to store.

I mean really - that's just 12" of ground space being taken up by a 7 foot tree.

The rest of the day was spent tucking away the ornaments and decorations in the rest of the room.

A couple of great things happen when you take down your decorations;
1.  the room gets cleaned.  Dusted, vacuumed, organized and genuinely cleaned and
2.  you suddenly seem to gain square footage!

This really is an epiphany!  (Sorry, bad joke)

Have a great one!