Where Christmas Tree Go?

Well, yesterday was “Christmas Tear Down”.  We’re not having a Twelfth Night party this year because we threw a cookie decorating party AND a New Year’s Slumber Party with three children under 4 and a big pot of melted chocolate which resulted in a New Year’s DAY of Brian and I laying around in our pajamas staring into space, enjoying the silence of no one in the house.  Maybe next year Twelfth Night will rock again.

I hate tear down, and now Charlotte does too.  This was her first Christmas were she ‘got it’.  She loved opening gifts, talking about Santa Claus, watching Charlie Brown Christmas, she loved the Christmas tree. Oh boy did she love it.  She loved the lights, looking at all the ornaments, getting ornaments for gifts, telling everyone how “cuuuute” they were. She wanted to reorganize the ornaments, show guests the ornaments, it was a real treat.  Yesterday, after her nap, she wandered into the sun room where the tree was, stood amongst the puddles of piney water, broken branchlettes, pine needles and turned around, sleepily, to say:

“Where Christmas Tree Go?”

I nearly burst into tears myself.  Christmas has to go away.  I learned that a long time ago.  If every day were Christmas, or if I lived my dream of owning a Christmas Tree Farm/Farmer’s Market, it would lose its magic.  Seeing the first commercials for Christmas sales, hearing a Carol on the radio, seeing a tree lot pop up with white lights strung between streetlamps, the covers of magazines splashed with baked goods and glitter and ribbon.  The anticipation of “it’s almost Christmastime” is part of the fun.  There’s so little surprise or anticipation left in life anymore.  We get everything we want, right now, on the internet, on dvd, at any store, that if you want to celebrate Easter in October, you probably could.  All that’s left is human gestation and the Day after Thanksgiving.  Oh well.

I’m trying to come up with some achievable Resolutions since in the past I’ve made such grand predictions as “become a perfect person by age 30”, “Publish a book and quit my job” and “something else and quit my job”.  The standard is always lose 20 pounds.  I’d rather lose eighty, but maybe forty would be nice.  It would still result in people calling me a fat f-ing C word at the Bears Games, but I’d be able to shop at Anthropologie.  I’d also like to get published, and Meredith and I are actually doing something about that this year.  I’d like to get back to swimming, back to yoga, I’d like to enjoy my life more outside of work, not just come home and watch t.v. or clean up or do laundry.  More crafting, more writing, more art, more cooking.  My project with Meredith will also contribute to this.  How about less medication, less Diet Coke, less Candy.  That sounds good.

I’m also going to do better with the blog. More pictures, more crafts, more tips from the Farmer’s Almanac.  Stay tuned.  It gets better.