So-long sparkle...

Can you believe it is mid-January already? I cannot! I started this post over a week ago & then school & activities started back & well, time just got away from me...as it is want to do! So even though Christmas is a memory more distant with each passing day, (like it starts to feel odd now when you ask someone if they had a nice Christmas) here is our farewell to Christmas...I would apologize yet again for another picture heavy post...but that rather seems to be the rule & not the exception!  
I now return you to the originally scheduled post...

Well the time came, and far too quickly in my opinion, to take down all of our Christmas decorations...the ribbons, the balls, the glitter, the garland, the wise men, the manger, the ornaments, the lights and (sniff, sniff) the Tree.
We actually waited until the Monday after New Year, and I would have waited another week, but Jeff stayed home from work that extra day just so we could get it all put away & cleaned up...and since our house is on the market, it's probably better that we took down the tree before there were more needles on the rug than on the tree.
The kids helped, but of course commented that it was not nearly as fun to un-decorate as it is to put the decorations up! We had no cheerful Christmas music playing in the background...no lights twinkled.
Here are a few a bunch of photos from this year & a couple even more from last year...I realized that I never blogged these photos last year & think they are cute...it is neat to see how some things change (like the kids GROW) and some things stay the same (like how silly they can be!)

Darcy is Daddy's shadow!

For some reason Jack felt that a Superman costume was befitting for the un-decorating...there really WAS a reason, but I cannot remember it now!

It is Sophie's job to set up the Nativity display & since she was at school, I saved it for last so that she could also put it away. She is so careful & diligent to wrap up each piece & put it in the correct box.

Darcy played helped

The kids posing on the stairs with all of the boxes...Sophie is posing like the angel is on the box...

Drew was resting while we took down the tree, but when he woke up from his nap he was ready to help, too!

And here are the photos from January 2009, a year ago...

Notice the bigger tree...sigh...

Darcy needed a break from all of the hard work!

She enjoyed playing helping with the Nativity last year, too! 

I have always wondered what her little mind was thinking here! 

And this picture below is the whole reason I went to the Jan 2009 photo folder, I remembered the kids laying down on the ground pretending to be fallen trees & I thought it was really cute!

Darcy was helping to pick up the tree needles...one at a time! 

Sophie put away the Nativity pieces last year, too! 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane as much as this momma has! And maybe this will be my last post dealing with Christmas 2009...maybe!