Christmastime is (still) here

Happy 2010!

The biggest surprise I have had about how growing up changes one's experience of Christmas (not counting the truth-about-Santa year) was sometime in my teens when I awoke Christmas morning to realize that I had not had any trouble sleeping. The second biggest surprise was a little more gradual: the metamorphosis by which taking down the decorations ceased to be terribly sad and came to induce a feeling of serenity and un-cluttered-ness. Usually by New Year's I am starting to crave the empty space on shelves, but this year I just hadn't been feeling it. Alas, Eric mentioned a few days ago that the tree pickup date for our apartment complex was on January 2, so today I set about un-decorating the tree while Owen was napping.

I figured Owen was not going to be thrilled about the ornaments going away, and I was right. He woke up as I was finishing the job. Immediately he grabbed a box and starting putting ornaments back on the tree. The conversation for the next few minutes ran basically as follows:

Me: "No, honey. Don't put the ornaments back on the tree. It's time to take them down." (etc)

Eric: "I should check and see where exactly we're supposed to drop the tree off tomorrow." [gets computer out.]

Me: "Okay, Owen, want to help me take the tinsel off? And the lights?" [removes frippery from tree]

Eric: "Oh... The tree pick-up is on the 5th."

[I look at bare, empty tree and imagine looking at it for another three days.]

Me: "Guess what, Owen? You get your wish!! Let's put the ornaments back on!"

We didn't put all of them back on, of course. I had separated everything into two piles already. The "going-to-Scotland" stuff was in its boxes, ready to be packed up, but the "not-going-to-Scotland" stuff (including the tinsel, lights, and ornaments without sentimental or aesthetic value) was just piled up on the counter. So we had plenty enough to do a fast redo on the tree. Sorry it's sideways, I've gotten lazy with the photos. Christmas continues!!

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