Family huffs, puffs and doesn't blow the house down

Santa may have trouble navigating through our home this Christmas.

That's because our house seems like a perpetual work zone these days.

Like all home projects, it started innocently enough. Joni and I decided to redo our bedrooms so Becca and Bailey could have their own rooms.

To achieve that end, we had to move our bedroom from the second floor to the first floor.

That meant breaking down beds and lugging everything from mattresses to dressers and desks upstairs and down.

Of course to do it right, we needed to clean out closets too.

I was amazed to discover that a whole other world existed inside our closets, one filled with clothes and shoes we hadn't worn for years and the little knickknacks that forever take root in the corners of our lives.

We filled up trash bags with life's debris and packed away other things in boxes for storage in the attic.

The project soon exploded with cleanup duties and furniture rearranging, sandwiched around our regular jobs, a dance recital and Christmas shopping.

Naturally, I volunteered to take out the trash rather than tackle the shopping chores.

At times last week, our home seemed like one big trash bag. No matter how many bags we filled, there was always more stuff to pitch.

Joni even found time to clean out the kitchen cabinets late one night, insisting that it was time to get ruthless.

With a city Dumpster parked in front of our yard, we went to work. We filled up the large container.

Nothing was safe, except our new TV and the Christmas tree.

Everything else was fair game for rearranging, storage or permanent removal.

Houses, however, have a mind of their own.

They don't take kindly to rearranging the order of the universe. Just getting Becca's desk moved upstairs required us to take down doors. We nearly broke our backs hauling the thing upstairs.

It wasn't a pretty sight. I could see the headline now: "Parents killed by falling desk."

It's not how you want to end your life, crushed at the bottom of the stairs with your kids' bedrooms left unfinished. We could have used some help from Dancer, Prancer and those other high-stepping reindeer.

Fortunately, we lived to haul some more.

We also put together themed tables, shelves and coat racks for the kids.

We erected a waterbed for Becca. Donated by relatives, the thing didn't come with directions.

Still, we managed to get the thing together and fill up the waterbed without flooding the house.

Along the way, we had to deal with screws that didn't screw, stubbed toes and assorted other inconveniences.

All our huffing and puffing didn't blow the house down, although it did leave us wishing for a service elevator.

Becca and Bailey were intrigued by the whole fix-up, clean-up process. They offered their help from time to time, often creating a traffic jam on the stairs that only added to the chaos.

It didn't bring me Christmas cheer. It's no fun being a beast of burden even for the holidays.

Fortunately, we've managed to throw away a lot of junk without once misplacing the kids.

With Christmas right around the corner, we're still cleaning up. But we can see the Christmas tree again.

With any luck, Santa will ignore the mess and not stack a Dumpster in our living room.

Our family loves Christmas. We don't want to trash it.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.