I‘m writing this while sitting at my kitchen table. From here, I can see the gingerbread houses my daughters decorated for our post-Christmas party. There’s also a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on top of the bookshelf. He’s made of brown construction paper with clothespin legs, a cotton ball tail and a red puffball nose. One of the girls made that decoration a half decade ago at school. It hasn’t been put away.
We’re having trouble moving on.
I’m still noshing on chips left over from our holiday party – I bought way too much food, as always.
In the family room, scattered about the floor, are DVDs Suzi still wants to watch a few dozen times, such as Santa Claus is Coming to Town and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Suzi also continues to break into rounds of "Jingle Bells" at will and ask questions about Santa. Yesterday it was, "So why does Santa deliver presents only on Dec. 25?"
And while I hate to admit it, the faux Christmas tree is still up in the living room, fully-decorated, though since Jan. 5 or so, no longer lit up.
Problem is, of course, it’s weeks past the holiday.
It happens like this some years. Too much travel. Too many visitors. Too much merry-making to recover from and then – BAM – school starts up and it’s time to get back to life or die! I have deadlines to meet and my husband has a pesky cold that he ignored in order to get back to work and now it may truly be turning into pneumonia.
It doesn’t look like this stuff is coming down this weekend either …
So here I am, still living in a Christmas card tableau.
About the only relief I get is when I take the dog out for a walk and see all the Rudolphs, Santas and Christmas lights still littering the neighbors’ lawns and houses. They’re stuck in December, too, apparently.
But why would it be any other way? Getting ready for holidays is a blast. Cleaning up after? Not so much. There’s still a big plastic pumpkin half-full of candy sitting atop the fridge!
But there is one sign Suzi may be getting ready to move forward. Yesterday she asked on the way home from school, "Mom, why haven’t you shown us, Happy New Year, Charlie Brown yet?"
Ah, progress.
