January 3: Cleaning Up, Throwing Out, Merry Christmas

Basking in the glow of my tree

After getting the kids off to school this morning, my wife and I spent the morning going through boxes, throwing out stuff that we had saved for no apparent reason, and cleaning up a corner of our house.  Basically, I told my wife over breakfast, “We’re going to be in this house for a while, so we better think about making it work for a family of four.”  That means cleaning out the attic and converting it into another bedroom for whichever child wants to stake a claim to it when the time comes.

I’m now sitting in my living room, typing this post, and listening to a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Christmas carols.  Yes, I’m still on my Christmas-every-day kick.  The Ghost of Christmas Present is still with me.  You may be wondering if this kick means I will leave my Christmas tree up all year.  I don’t think I’m going to go that far.  (I have, in the past, left it up until after July 4.)  It’s more a spirit thing.  The spirit of Christmas, with its generosity and love of humankind, is what I’m hoping to sustain.

It’s strange not having at least one of my children home right now.  There is a sense of emptiness in the house.  I’m not complaining.  I don’t mind a few hours of peace in the glow of the Christmas tree.  Last night, as I was driving down our street, I noticed how many of the houses have already gone dark.  Christmas trees and displays are, one-by-one, disappearing.  I even saw one house with the husk of a tree on its front porch.  A little depressing.

At the moment, it’s not too hard to sustain my Christmas spirit.  There’s enough evidence of the holiday still around to keep the Yule log of my heart burning.  We’ll see how my Yule log is doing come mid-February.  My guess is that I’ll have a pretty small log left, and it will be just smoking.  No active flames.  Not enough to even toast a marshmallow.

For the moment, however, Saint Marty can still say pretty heartily, “Merry Christmas to all!”