Taking Christmas Down

So Joey turns to me Monday afternoon and says, "Mommy, let's take the Christmas tree down." Yep, it's time. Christmas is over. For Joey's world view, Christmas came, Christmas went, it is time to move on. So today, the tree came down. Happy Twelfth Night.

I started while the boys were in school, stripping the tree of ornaments that might require special packing or sorting of any kind. The gold chains, the paper Santas, the toys, etc. all go in their own particular boxes, leaving the plastic to be tossed into one big tub together. In a couple more years, I'll be able to get my real decorations out. Then the boys rolled in. Andy took a few decorations off, then got distracted by the arrival of our neighbor. Joey came off the bus without his backpack, and he nearly melted down he was so upset about forgetting it on the bus. He didn't really recover enough to be interested until I was taking the lights off. Those still need to be boxed. So I ended up doing the vast majority of tree-disassembly myself.

And like most years, as I take the decorations down, I realize that the vast majority of you, once again, never even saw them.

If that strikes you as odd, just keep in mind that as I am putting them up, I am thinking things like, "wow, Stimey would really like this," or "Niksmom would think this was totally cute," or "I wonder what Maddy's kids would think of this." Yes, I love my Christmas decorations, and the solid majority of them I am thinking, "I'm glad Mom this this is pretty" or "JoeyAndyDad enjoys this" or "Joey and Andy are gonna go bonkers over this." And of course, "Hey, this is nice. Let me see how it would look if I did this." And there is an awful lot of things I wish I had gotten around to doing, planned to do, even bought what I needed to get it done, and didn't. But it just seems really weird and surreal to me that most of you guys never see them. In fact, very few folks ever see them. The boys. JoeyAndyDad, My Mom. Evan. This year, my Dad and his wife saw them. Ms. A and Mr. Wesley happened in to see them mostly, but not fully, set up. The neighbor saw them briefly.

And that's it.

I know, last year I put up the video of the decorations, and I hope you guys liked it. I love putting them up and seeing the world all pretty-sparkly Christmasy wonderland in my house. I will miss my lighted garlands of glass ornaments, even if I've been mostly too tired to spend a lot of time in the evening downstairs.

But somehow, that realization that you guys don't see them, it is just one of those things. Something about wishing you were here.