The yearly transformation doesn’t happen on a specific day. It isn’t predictable like Winter Solstice, and it always catches me off-guard. The only certainty is that sometimes during the two-week post-Christmas window, all the carefully arranged decorations suddenly will become clutter.

It’s not that I am a neat freak … I just need to clear out the holiday decor to make room for the daily piles of mail, newspapers and to-do lists covering every horizontal surface. For weeks these have been relocated, but how can anyone find anything when it’s tucked away in another room?

As a kid, I fought the post-holiday teardown. Our Christmas trees went up too late and came down too early. While our abbreviated holiday season was always special, I just wanted it to continue. Now the season seems more like a yearly sunset: wonderful while it’s here, but not made to linger. What does linger are the accoutrements.

As the undecorating commences, I guiltily ignore our display of Christmas cards. When each one arrived, they were greeted with a smile. Now they haunt me, rebuking me for never sending out cards of our own. I intended to mail out a New Year’s greeting, but that deadline also passed. Our daughter has suggested that we aim for St. Patrick’s Day instead.

The Santas, the snowmen and the snow globes all need to be dusted. Isn’t it easier just to box them up?

Gift bags … their fate depends on how many layers of tags adorn them. When the remnants of four or five labels can be located, even I will admit that it’s time to retire the bag.

What doesn’t get packed away are the outside lights. The Saranac Lake tradition of leaving lights on until after Winter Carnival has always appealed to me. They are like a bridge between the two seasons and have never felt untidy or out of place. Of course, Carnival can bring its own anticipation, joy and, ultimately, clutter. The more involved you are, the more you understand this truism.

During Carnival, layers of winter gear, buttons, costumes, glitter and printed schedules litter our house. This was particularly true when Beth Whalen and I coordinated a middle school parade unit. While Scott Smith and Don Carlisto were always game to provide the musical support (and ride in the truck), Beth and I would be knee-deep in parade preparation for weeks.

Rounding up student participants, choreographing dance moves and constructing costumes added up to gleeful chaos. We chicken danced as farmers and animals, dressed as conductors for “Locomotion” and created massive carousel animals. Our constructions spilled out of our classrooms and took over the Art Room. Under the patient direction of Rose Kelly and Maria DeAngelo, the students’ artwork blossomed.

For a few short hours each year, the paper, glitter and teen spirit would boogie down the parade route; then the glory would be over. At best, the fantastic trappings would become souvenirs, at worst rubble.

The year of the massive masks was particularly memorable. They were Rose Kelly’s idea: giant tiki-pole-style heads fabricated from chicken wire and plaster of Paris, then coated with a rainbow of paint. Middle school creativity burst from every surface: bulging eyes, horns and noses. When the students wore them, they were at least 6 feet tall.

On parade day, all the hard work paid off. We were fabulous. We were truly a troop of wild things. We were a spectacle worthy of Winter Carnival.

Our unit finished, and within seconds, everyone disappeared — unfortunately, not without a trace. At the edge of LaPan Highway was a mountain of psychedelic heads. We had a truck, but nowhere to go. The brightly colored noggins couldn’t travel home to Vermontville with me. They would fly out along the way.

The parade marshals pressured us to hurry up. Beth and I loaded the truck, then slowly headed up the highway — destination unknown.

We knew we couldn’t get into the school until Monday. We knew we couldn’t go far with the wobbly cargo. We knew we needed to ditch those bizarre tiki heads and fast.

The epiphany came at the football field. Who lived right up the street? Who had a mostly unused garage? Who was Mr. Winter Carnival himself? Who might not even notice a mountain of heads occupying his property?

So we drove to this friend’s house, knowing he would be attending all the festivities and guessing that he would be none the wiser about his temporary guests.

Beth and I congratulated ourselves on our solution as our Carnival clutter landed in the dusty garage.

After all, didn’t Ben Franklin say something like, “A place for everything, especially at someone else’s place?”