Christmas was at our new house this year, which is still very much empty (not a piece of furniture). I found most of the evening I was needing things that were packed away in storage (in which there is a very good chance will never see the light of day again). You see, when we moved back home we thought it would be a very temporary solution, so I had a brilliant idea to even out the weight of the boxes we were shipping by mixing everything up. I wrapped clothes from enormous rolls of plastic wrap and used them to pad our breakables and fill the spaces between our odd sized items. Now 2 years later we are still discovering long lost clothing items, and wondering if our swimsuits are with the boxes of pots and pans or picture frames. Since we're still not in the house we intend on settling into the boxes are still waiting and we continue to live without random items you don't realize you miss until you need them. Try draining pasta without a colander, or flipping pancakes without a spatula - "ruffing it" as my mom likes to call it is only amusing for so long.
Even with all we were lacking our family Christmas party was as jubilant and fulfilling as years past, with good company and fabulous food. After all, in our family that's what we enjoy most about the holidays with after holiday shopping a close second :)
