I Officially Hate Christmas, Part 3: Taking it All Down

10 Reasons Putting Away the Christmas Decorations was Worse than Putting Them Up:

10.) Broken ornaments made Mom cry, even when it was only a few of the cheap, colored bulbs.

9.) Laughing hysterically at the fact that she was crying over broken colored bulbs and how funny “colored bulbs” are only made things worse.

8.) Climbing up on the old, unsafe ladder was not a good idea in the first place, but became an even worse one because it had been raining and the ground was not solid. Therefore, it sank about 3 inches with each climb, in addition to wobbling like a weeble.

7.) I don’t know how one of the strings of lights became wedged between two roof shingles, but getting it out of there was like an extreme sport. Yanking the damn lights off while on the old, unsafe ladder, was indeed, unsafe.

6.) While on the old, unsafe ladder, there was a preying mantis on the window screen, daring me to make a move so it could attack. I jumped off the ladder, missing the last 4 rungs. It can have the house...and some of my dignity.

5.) Nothing fit into the box it originally came out of, even with a significant amount of brute strength.

4.) Even though no new Christmas stuff was purchased, there seemed to be twice as many boxes as when I brought them down.

3.) Dragging the tree outside and then taking off the $11 stand was more work than putting the damn thing up.

2.) Tied to the roof on the way to the park for recycling, I prayed: “If the tree falls off, please let it be somewhere that will not hurt anyone and where there is no one around so I can just drive away.”

1.) After putting everything away, cleaning up, and getting dusty, sweaty and gross, but feeling overall accomplished for a job well done, I realized that the $11 Christmas tree stand was still on the front porch. I threw in the garage and hope it’s still there next year when someone else puts up the fucking decorations. I’m done.