Christmas cleanup

There are new toys that need a "home" and (more) old toys that are on their way to a new home (via the give-away box). I am getting better at this, though slowly. My problem is that I'll come across a toy like these stacking rings that my mom gave the girls several years ago. The green ring has been missing for at least a year. Do I hang on to it, hoping to find the missing green ring? Do I donate it with a missing ring?. Do I throw away the tower and keep the rings for the kids to play with? Do I donate the rings without the tower for some other kids to play with? Or, maybe I could keep a few and donate the rest since it's not a "complete set" anyway, so I put it down and move on to something else...like hanging pictures.

My mother-in-law bought this print on her trip to Italy last year, blessed by the Pope, of course, then had the image lifted and put on canvas and beautifully framed for a lovely Christmas present. I also bought this card at our local Catholic bookstore, taped it to a burgundy piece of cardstock and put it in an 8.5" x11" frame to hang in my laundry room...something I've been wanting for a long time.

I've put away the Jesse Tree ornaments, the Advent wreath, our St. Nicholas stockings, and the blessed chalk with a copy of the Epiphany blessing. I'm slowly taking down the ornaments, trying to fix any that got broken while the kids were playing with and/or re-arranging them on the tree. There are also several I've had to throw away because when said ornaments were re-arranged, certain ones ended up within Stephen's reach (I thought about making this a separate post titled "forbidden fruit"):



Once the ornaments are taken care of, I have (most of) a tree to put away. It's kind of ironic that this happened this year. My friend, Kristi, was in awe that we put up our tree without any kind of gate or fence protecting it from the little ones. Well, I reasoned, we've always done it this way and have taught our kids to respect the tree, touch ornaments and lights gently, etc...etc...etc... What a great mother I am, right? So, of course this was the year that several ornaments got broken...and so did the tree. I don't know how it happened, but we have an artificial tree with several tiers of "rings" with slots that you put the branches in, and four of the slots on the bottom ring got broken. I guess the kids just wanted more room for presents under the tree. It's not that bad, is it?