Filed under: Holidays on the Road, Space Saving

Patti’s Saga of an RV Rookie: Downsizing Christmas to an RV

Patti’s Saga of an RV Rookie: Downsizing Christmas to an RV

We’re giving away or selling darn near everything, right at Christmas time.  Our goal is to sell the house (yes, you nay-sayers, houses on our street have been selling!), hit the road when the weather warms, and head to Montana and Canada for a few months. No since leaving Arizona now, wouldn’t you agree? When things gets grey, cold, and harsh up north, we’ll head south.

Right now, we’re in “downsizing to an RV” mode. We have four adult children (three with spouses) , one who thinks he’s an adult, and five grandchildren. That’s a lot of past Christmas stuff. In a previous Woodall’s blog I addressed the emotional realities of giving away our things. Check out “Why We’re Morphing into Snowbirds” for the gory details.

But now, we’re actually doing it, giving away our stuff. Watching it leave the house. Exchanging it for ‘filthy lucre’, as they said in my high school Latin class. And how am I handling it? Quite well, since you asked. Perhaps writing that other blog helped me make peace with letting go of material things I’ve loved.

Many of our things are gone already, and we just started letting go about two weeks ago. The truth is, I wouldn’t remember most of it had we not taken photos, as was suggested to me. And Christmas? I had feared that our house would look bare and awful this Christmas, before we get into the big RV. It doesn’t at all.

It looks just like it will look inside of our lovely RV! We have a “24” fake tree (as opposed to a 7 footer) with one strand of lights (instead of 10), and just a few  ‘gotta keep ‘em’ ornaments to decorate. Oh, and my mom’s hand quilted stockings made for each of us…gotta have those.

Our home looks gorgeous. There is still that lovely lighted hush in a darkened house that comes from a Christmas tree, only it comes from a much smaller tree with fewer things on it. But the best thing about Christmas is we have our faith and the family and friends at Christmas that mean so much to us. That changes not, whether we’re in a house or an RV. Christmas will always be lovely, no matter where we, because of who we are. As someone quite tiny once said, “God bless us everyone!”

Happy Tales to you, Patti

Last 5 posts by Patti F.

• Patti’s Saga of a Former RV Rookie :Give a Mother’s Day gift she’ll really like: an iPad docking station. - May 2nd, 2012
• Patti Faustini: How you can benefit from the Eastern Montana/North Dakota Bakken Oil Boom, Part 3: housing and cost of living - February 9th, 2012
• Patti Faustini: How you can benefit from the Eastern Montana/North Dakota Bakken Oil Boom: Part 2 (Two Sides to Every Coin). - February 5th, 2012
• Patti Faustini: Part 1 of How you can benefit from the Eastern Montana/North Dakota Bakken Oil Boom: There's oil and jobs! - January 30th, 2012
• Patti’s Saga of an RV Rookie: Christmas Eve Salad, Tlaquepaque style… - November 28th, 2011

Tagged: downsize Christmas, material things at Christmas, RV Christmas, RV Tiny Tim Christmas