You may think you know this story, as it starts with a flutter, but the Grinch I'm referring to deals specifically with clutter.
Her face may not be green and she doesn't live in a cave, but her grinchy ways come out when cleanliness she does crave.
Opposite from the grinch that we all love and know, her heart doesn't start out needing to grow.
Her heart already swells three sizes each holiday season, but the trees and presents and glitter all wear on her for some reason.
As the holiday stretches and we see Baby New Year, I begrudgingly agree to what has become entirely clear.
Though all the Who's down in Whoville might be singing their song...
Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome Christmas, come this way!
...the excess and obstacles all begin to feel just so wrong.
Our first step in packing involves staging the gear, gathering all of our bobbles the first weekend of the New Year.
It's an agreement in our house and one of our clearly stated rules, if we leave Christmas up too long we look like two fools.
Day two brings more reduction and removal of our trinkets, placing them all atop our guest bedroom's blankets.
On the final day of the purge we reach a true fevered pitch, and I'd be lying if I said that the Grinch didn't once bitch!
We climb into the attic to pull down our buckets, boxes, and bags, and begin organizing and sorting and packing our Who swags.
It begins with piles of cheer all over the house, and ends with a flurry of activity I'd like to see more often from my spouse.
We remove ornaments and garland and lights from the tree, and we take down all of the bows and the wreaths that we see.
The nutcrackers that like to crack nuts in here heads, are wrapped in their wrapping and placed in their box beds.
But before I know it that's when IT happens to me, but what IT is I'm not entirely sure, you see?
Among all of the piles of holiday glee, something catches my eye over next to the tree.
A little red barn with animals at play on the ground, and the lights of the tree twinkling all around.
"Maybe, just today, we'll leave it all in place, we'll leave it tomorrow, and maybe the next day, just in case..."
...What if we don't actually want Christmas to go away? What if this Christmas was always meant to stay? We can keep the tree with its lights all a glow, we can keep the Santas and reindeers and bows.
All of this organizing and packing can be such a chore, we'd rather watch Downton Abbey, it's far less of a bore.
"No!" Yells the Grinch, "I must stick to my plan, it must all go away as fast as it can!"
"I can't stand the thought of it around one more day! If this Christmas hangs around any longer you'll surely pay!"
The thing that I hate is the Grinch is right all along, if only the end of the season could be signalled with a gong.
We've had a great time with all our family and pets, but now that it's January it's time life resets!
We plug right along from morning 'til night, shuffling and packing it all out of sight. The boxes are filled with all of the cheer, safely packed away for another great year.
As we prepare to rid our home of our trees, we begin to buckle and shake at the knees. Oh the mess of the the trees! The trees, trees, trees, trees!
The trees drop their needles all over the floor, you can see the messy trail that's left when we head to the door!
The curb of the street is where we drop our old tree, then the city comes along to collect them for free. They take them away in the back of a truck, to the chipper and grinder to be turned into muck.
Back in our house the mess migrates from downstairs to up, we stage and organize with little help from our pup.
Though our eyes grow weary and we just want a break, we know there's no rest while there's still boxes to take.
It's true that the mess is what the Grinch truly does hate, but after hours of effort it finally starts to look great. We may still have bows in random house places, but they've been largely removed from most of our spaces.
The attic is where our Christmas boxes will stay, waiting to be displayed in just 329...plus one more day.
At the end of the effort our home feels oh so bare, and that's when I realize what's behind Christmas cheer. Our Christmas spirit comes in with a rush in November, but it must leave just as fast or it can be an overwhelming crush to remember.
The key to the Grinch's eagerness to do it again in a year, is balanced with her terror of appearing on Hoarders, a true fear!
As you can see from my grinchy tale from above, Christmas has a time and place for my Grinch's love. But as the season lingers and stretches to January, we must resolve the issues before she feels far too weary.
With all of our boxes stowed at the end of the day, we can resume our house projects with nothing in our way.
We hope you've enjoyed our tale of Wendy Grinch today, she doesn't come around often, but if you see her be sure to stay out of her way!
Do you have a need or compulsion to clean your holiday clutter as we do? Perhaps the Grinch's hoarding fear also afflicts you?
Please share your methods and practices that you use to cope, this way my Grinch will feel like far less of a dope.
