How I lost Weight by Counting Calories

Today I want to talk with you about how I lost weight by counting calories. Check out my video where I go over what I did and didn't do to lose the weight.

Are Your Christmas Decorations Still Up? Here is Why I Took Mine Down

I'm one of these people that can't go into the New Year with Christmas decorations still up. I took mine down last week. Some people still have their decorations up because they just can't bear to take them down. Others are too busy to take the time.

This is What My House Looked Like

This is my family room. You know the one where we sit down at night and try to relax? I love decorating this part of my home. It is so easy with the mantel. 

Here is my den a few days before Christmas. 

We decided to have a fire to complete the scene. It was a cold and rainy night. We happened to have some dry firewood. You'll notice that we have presents under our tree already. In my house, we don't do the Santa thing, even though I have three young boys. You can read about why we don't do Santa. 

Why I Take My Decorations Down Immediately 

I love the way my house looks when I decorate it for Christmas until approximately 12 hours after we open the presents. Then I feel like it is time to take them down. We didn't even plug the tree in after Christmas day. 

When I was growing up, we always had a real tree. In fact, this is only the second year we had a fake one in my home. Since my dad worked out of town, getting out to buy a real tree meant we didn't decorate until two weeks into the month of December. 

The tradition my husband and I follow, is that we decorate the day after Thanksgiving. My tree stays up almost an entire month. When I was growing up, it stayed up for almost a month as well...only into the month of January. 

No one felt like taking down the decorations after Christmas. It also didn't help that my dad stored the Christmas stuff in a small storage area in the ceiling that wasn't easy to get to. None up could get up there but my dad. We would have to wait for him to be home to get the boxes down for us. 

It became a pet peeve of mine to hurry up and get my house back together after Christmas, since it was well into January before we would take down those decorations. It didn't help any that my mom would leave up the "snow scenes" that she put together. I mean, it was winter after all right? That just meant that sometimes we'd go into April with snowmen out. 

I like starting the New Year fresh with my house back together like usual. I don't do well with change, and even changing my decorations is enough to bother me. 

What about you? When do you take your decorations down? Or are they still up?