Time

I've decided that taking down Christmas decorations is by far the most depressing task I do repeatedly year after year. I mean think about it, you spend hours and hours undoing all the decorating that you spent hours and hours putting out just one short month ago. I imagine that people from other cultures would look at this practice and add it to the long list of why Americans are so very strange.

By the time your done, you've filled up so many boxes with stuff that, had you still lived in that apartment you lived in in college, people would think that you were about to move. But you don't move, you just put them up in the attic and look around at your suddenly bland, slightly empty, and very dusty house and realize that it is now time to return to normal life.

This depresses you at first, especially when you realize that normal life includes dusting all the surfaces that had been for the past month covered in garland and nativity sets. But then you see the new book you got for Christmas, sit down on the couch and begin to read and you realize, you now have time. With the holidays behind you, the sparkle may be gone, but so is the busyness and stress. Your mood suddenly lifts, what a precious gift you've just found.

Here's wishing you a restful and peaceful New Year, one filled with lots of what we all want this year...time.