It's New Year's Day - now comes the task of packing the Xmas tree decorations.

And that throws us into the role of Information Architect - for about half an hour.

As much as we might want to toss everything into a big bin,

the fear of utter confusion in 11 months causes us to think this over.

We know we have to put like things together, and store them nicely.

Finding 'like things' begins with the crude perception of

a single group nominally called 'Xmas decorations'

- but that's the 'big bin' perspective.

Similarities can only be seen when differences are noted

- and that requires a pretty thorough initial survey.

Thankfully the dining room table is fairly empty.

Is the bird 'like' the bear? How many animals do we have anyway?

There are some precious looking fake crystal thingies that

should probably go into their own container/plastic bag.

Not sure why, but it feels like they should.

There's something appropriate about seeing this treble clef amongst a

cacaphony of objects. Like notes in a piece of music,

these objects need to be organized in relation to each other.

But what is the tune?

Conchita fusses over the glass balls saying something about finding

'the ones that aren't cheap'.

Ah, the not-cheap decorations get special treatment.

This glass ball is 'not like' the other glass balls.

I remember first hearing the word 'steerage' in the old Titanic movie.

The steerage passengers didn't get lifeboats.

Luckily we have a 'lifeboat' for these second class citizens.

Most things will end up in the ice cooler

- a veritable strongbox for Xmas decorations.

Crap! How did we miss this precious looking fake crystal?

The others are already in their special plastic bag, somewhere.

This one is dropped into the void between bags and boxes.

Last up and last down.

For whatever reason, the tree-topping-not-too-cheap-looking-star-like-thing

is considered special enough that we never threw out the original box.

The box itself will go into the blue suitcase which,

incidentally, is more expensive than the ice cooler.

(Oh look - so that's what happened to the Dilbert book!)

Unlike decorating the tree, which is largely an aesthetic undertaking,

packing away the decorations is pure pseudo-science.