It’s over.

As quickly as we finished the last of Thanksgiving leftovers and flipped the calendar page to the month of December, the holidays breezed past like a runaway train.

For me, and maybe not for all, the saddest part of the Christmas season is taking down all the beautiful decorations, inside and outside our home.   Right now, a still graceful Concolor Fir stands in our living room, emptied of its many lights, ornaments, garland and vintage tree top star.  Still fresh and barely losing its needles, it looks now as it did the Sunday our family went to a tree farm, spending hours walking through acres of trees on our very own “Griswold Family Christmas Tree” expedition.  Three vehicles full of people and Christmas sweater-wearing dogs on a cold rainy day spent trudging up and down muddy hills with cups of hot apple cider and saws in hand.  Great fun and a wonderful memory for our grandchildren.

And so the holiday madness began.  Shopping, wrapping, cooking, combined with rushing through each day like a madwoman.  Christmas Eve, after our traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner, I finally found myself sitting and enjoying our festive surroundings.  And reality slowly crept in.  Within hours, everything merry would once again come to an end.  Soon, paper, ribbons and gift tags would be strewn everywhere and the last of Christmas music would slowly disappear from the airwaves. 

Today, as I wrapped fragile ornaments and packed away hundreds of lights, I wondered if it was just my getting older, with more focus on how quickly time keeps passing, or have the holidays become so consuming in our lives that we don’t make the time to simply stop…and enjoy the merry…while we can.

From Mama Kat’s Workshop…Write a blog post inspired by the word: merry