Holiday Tidbits

Usually by the time the holidays are over for the year I'm ready to take down the decorations and get my house back into order.  This year I didn't feel that way.  This year I felt sort of, I guess, sad.  I enjoyed the tree in the area of the house that we placed it in.  An area that hadn't seen a tree there since Tom first bought the house, and we felt it brought warmth and a coziness to our living room.  I contemplated leaving it up.  Maybe taking down the ornaments and replacing them with monthly decorations in celebration of different holidays.  I could put up pictures of Martin Luther King and peace signs for January, red hearts and streamers for February.  Then the tree began to smell.

Not a funky smell, but a very pine-y smell that had been missing since we got the tree.  A scent that I quite enjoyed, but then while leaning into the tree and inhaling a whiff of the pine I brushed up against the limbs.  Let's just say that it is a good thing I wasn't holding a candle.  When Tom first bought the tree two days after Thanksgiving my brother-in-law's response was, "It should be good and flammable in time for Christmas!"  Maybe not then, but now?  That sucker would go up in flames if someone breathed salsa breath on it.  I knew my dream of leaving the tree up had ended.

I spent yesterday taking down the tree and most of the decorations in the house.  I spent today putting all the stuff away.  I watched the garbage man haul away my beloved Christmas tree this morning as I came home from walking the dog, and I began to ponder the past two weeks.  Let's take a look:

• It is amazing how fast money flies out of my pocket in the month of December.  It is even more amazing how much money flies out of my pocket during this time.
• Darcy said yesterday as we drove home from soccer practice and viewed the few remaining lights still decorating houses, "Christmas is such a pretty holiday."  And she is right.  Pretty, cheerful, colorful, hopeful...
• A small Christmas celebration is much less stressful then a large one, but the amount of dishes used seems the same.
• A nicely decorated gingerbread house makes a lovely centerpiece on the dining room table.
• Colored lights throughout the house are not only welcoming, but comforting.
• A nice salad every once in awhile between all the junk food and holiday cookies makes you feel better.
• When the house is decorated it doesn't look as dirty.
• Not getting a book for Christmas is just plain wrong.
• Two weeks of break isn't a long enough time spent with my kids.

Good-bye Christmas.  See ya next year!