The Christmas days are winding down. I can’t imagine having a job where you have to work the day after Christmas or even the week after. Christmas seems to be the one holiday of the year where the majority of people have some semblance of respect and appreciation for rest and family. When we cross through Springfield on Christmas evening, every year it is a sight to behold where every store is dark and every lot empty.

On New Year’s it doesn’t happen. On any other holiday it doesn’t happen. Today I did some tidying underneath around the tree. The Christmas ornaments came off and I gathered up the tree skirt and piled the stockings to be washed. At some point a cat threw up under there so that’s why I’m washing it. There’s a massive pile of laundry in the laundry room as a result of the boys spending daily cleaning time in their room.

I don’t need Christmas to stay as long like I used to. But still there is that question, “How do you just go back to normal?” I love the gradualness of it all, both the leading up and the coming down. I only feel the pressure once the new year comes and it seems a little stale to have these stockings still laying around. You start to dream of meals again, something other than snacks and leftovers and whatever we’ve else been surviving on.

I like how Christmas holds both years, the one before and the one beginning. This only works if you take 12 days (if you’re going to celebrate a few you might as well celebrate all of them). But the new year, yes. I need to start checking my email again, and start showing up for some hours again. This class I’m taking was scheduled to meet four times, one in December, three in January. I didn’t go tonight so I will have to make it up.

Two days after Christmas group attendance was high. I did go for that. If I survive another year I could be done with all of this in only 12 months. I made chicken soup for supper at the request of one of the kids whose under the weather. The boys have a friend over. I’ve heard from Ethan a couple of times and even from Laura. Dad still has some time off minus the usual writing or management. Tis still the season of my heart.