Monday, January 02, 2006

Un-decoration Day, or Movin' On

One last look at Christmas before it comes down. Indulge me. New Year's is over and I have one grace day before heading back to work tomorrow (though I did work last week).

Today is one of my least favorite days of the year - Taking Down the Christmas Tree Day. I'll leave the creche in place until after Epiphany, but everything else starts coming down.

My little tree has served me well. I will sorely miss its lights, baubles, and smell. I'll take the tree for recycling, but before I leave it on the heap with the others, I'll hold on to a branch and thank the little evergreen for making the house so lovely. Kate laughs at my little Christmas tree separation speech, but I feel some sort of formal goodbye is in order in the face of such service to the holiday.

So off I go. Unfestooning is not as much fun as festooning, but there's a strange satisfaction in getting things back to their normal arrangement. Still. Sigh.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Your photograph conveys a great feeling of cosiness Mary. I can almost hear the crackle of the fire .....

Shouldn't you be waiting for Twelfth Night though ? Not that we do here at home - someone will shortly be downstairs taking down our artificial tree. We usually have a real one but we've got fed up of all the pine needles.

MaryB said...

I do keep the creche in place (it's on a table in the dining room)until Epiphany, but everything else comes down on New Year's Day or quickly thereafter.

I love my real tree and wouldn't have it any other way, but I have hardwood floors, which makes cleanup/sweepup a lot easier than if I had carpets everywhere.

A good New Year to all the Wildgooses!

Christa said...

I think it's rather nice when I can take everything down after the holidays. Maybe it's just me who gets sick and tired of red and green, but at least during later years I've had enough after a few weeks...lol

In Sweden they won't take down the tree until January 20. It's an old tradition and maybe that's why I'm so fast to clean out Christmas these days, I don't know.