Every year, after Christmas, I put off taking down my Christmas decorations for a few days. I do this for a few reasons: 1) I am very tired and Christmas is a lot of work and 2) the house feels so empty after the Christmas tree is gone and all of my very stylish (i.e tacky) decorations are boxed up and placed in storage. The partially dead Christmas tree looks skeletal without lights and decorations and when my husband and I turf the tree over the patio railing to deal with in the Spring, the tree remains lying broken on the snow like a sad Christmas corpse.
There is a part of me that wished that I could be organized enough to have seasonal decorations for every major holiday. Maybe I should rig up a giant floating heart for St. Valentine’s Day with a ridiculous cherub shooting an arrow at the heart. Maybe instead I should find a large stuffed rabbit that I could dress in a suit and top hat for a classy Easter bunny display. I think instead I should find a groundhog stuffed animal that we could animate to pop out of a hole and yell, “Surprise! There’s six more weeks of winter” at irregular intervals as to best scare our children and the dog. Maybe, I’ll just put Christmas away instead.
I am proud to report that our mostly homemade Christmas 2014 was a success and I (mostly) finished all of my presents on time. This year, I even finished some presents that I had started to give as gifts two years ago. I may not give people their gifts on time, but they will definitely receive them in the end.
In our home, New Year’s Eve is a non-holiday. In the years since we’ve had kids, New Year’s Eve gets increasingly low-key every year. Last year, we had a newborn and a two year old and we attempted to create a new family tradition of a New Year’s Eve Living Room Mattress Family Movie Night. My husband and I put the spare mattress on the living room floor with tons of blankets and pillows with chips and snacks in easily accessible locations. We then tried to watch Finding Nemo with a two-year old with no attention span. I think it was the first movie that we’d ever all tried to watch together and we learned something that night. Two-year old boys are fidgety. It’s hard to have a family movie night when a small person chatters and fidgets and jumps up and down every thirty seconds. However, it was still fun and, I think, the beginnings of a family tradition.
I wish that everyone in Prince George had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year and I wish you all good things to come in 2015. Peace and love to you and your families in the New Year.
