The Last Ornament
I don’t know about you, but I am personally soooo glad the holidays are behind me. Truly, I’m no Scrooge. I don’t have any problems filling up with child-like excitement when I hear the first strain of Joy To The World just after Thanksgiving and I love putting up a tree and baking goodies for my neighbors.
But the timing of Christmas with the entry of the new year just after is really an extraordinary coincidence, don’t you think? I mean, we work so hard to make the yuletide so “right.” We want to be with family and experience Hallmark moments. We set very high expectations for what it means to do Christmas.
As a result, if those expectations aren’t met, we feel something must be wrong…with THEM, with US, with IT. Did we say the right thing, wear the right thing, buy the right thing?
And of course, there’s the whole gift event. Wow. Christmas has become our economy’s annual last, best hope. If 75% of Americans decided to limit their gifts to one homemade item per person, we would go into a depression (emotionally and fiscally, I fear).
My point….the “door number 3” event of the holidays is a remarkably cleansing and refreshing crossing into a new year. The old is behind us. We re-enter the fray anew. While we were on break some mystic hand erased and oiled the cosmic chalkboard.
There’s a fresh grade book with empty columns to fill with test scores from a whole new set of experiences and maybe, just maybe it will be better….I’m going to work to make it better!
But first I have to get closure on the old year. And that comes via the ritual of putting away the Christmas decorations. It’s a semi-holy event for me. I find enormous satisfaction in taking the ornaments off the tree, ceremonially placing them in their clear plastic storage boxes. I wind the light strings around cardboard and wrap them in used grocery sacks so they won’t get tangled while they wait for their next illuminatiion. In my mind I pull out the map of my house and recount all the niches and nooks where I set angels, nativities, santas, and such. I want to round them up and bring the full herd in.
That’s the important part….the full herd. It is a personal challenge to get each and every one of those critters back into their storage container in one big sweep. Part of the ritual is to place those full and organized boxes of Christmas back in the attic, never to return for ten and a half months. It’s a challenge, a personal goal, a need I have.
Alas, it remains and illusive ideal.
Every year it would seem that all the ornaments got together in advance and elect one of their own to be that season’s stealth hold-out. I can just imagine that little guy making himself really little while I pass by on my quest for the perfectly put-away Christmas. And I know he breathes a sigh of relief knowing he has accomplished his mission when he sees me heading out to the garage with closed boxes and a satisfied smile on my face.
And I hate the moment I find him a day or so later. It just sticks in my gut.
This year it was a nasty little angel in a red calico dress wearing a crooked halo and holding a wooden sign that jabbed me with its message: “peace.”
Fat chance on that one, honey. You were my peace but you screwed that up when you didn’t reveal yourself, when you hid behind the magazines on the end table, when you made winning the “Christmas in the rearview mirror” war more important than the message on your nasty little sign.
I didn’t give her what she wanted.
I didn’t put her back in the box with her compadres where they had planned to hold a massive celebration and recognition event for her. I put her on the vanity where I do my hair and make-up so she would have to look at me every morning and think about what she had done. I want her to know that actions have consequences.
Problem is, I am the one doing the thinking.
About that word on her sign: peace. And I remember that once angels made a historic journey past the stars and planets to hover in a frozen sky where they shouted that word, not as a blessing but as a command. “Peace on earth!” they proclaimed.
“It’s time has come! There is a great one entering your space who will show you how to do it. Get it right this time!”
Hmmm….I wonder what the new year wil bring.
But the timing of Christmas with the entry of the new year just after is really an extraordinary coincidence, don’t you think? I mean, we work so hard to make the yuletide so “right.” We want to be with family and experience Hallmark moments. We set very high expectations for what it means to do Christmas.
As a result, if those expectations aren’t met, we feel something must be wrong…with THEM, with US, with IT. Did we say the right thing, wear the right thing, buy the right thing?
And of course, there’s the whole gift event. Wow. Christmas has become our economy’s annual last, best hope. If 75% of Americans decided to limit their gifts to one homemade item per person, we would go into a depression (emotionally and fiscally, I fear).
My point….the “door number 3” event of the holidays is a remarkably cleansing and refreshing crossing into a new year. The old is behind us. We re-enter the fray anew. While we were on break some mystic hand erased and oiled the cosmic chalkboard.
There’s a fresh grade book with empty columns to fill with test scores from a whole new set of experiences and maybe, just maybe it will be better….I’m going to work to make it better!
But first I have to get closure on the old year. And that comes via the ritual of putting away the Christmas decorations. It’s a semi-holy event for me. I find enormous satisfaction in taking the ornaments off the tree, ceremonially placing them in their clear plastic storage boxes. I wind the light strings around cardboard and wrap them in used grocery sacks so they won’t get tangled while they wait for their next illuminatiion. In my mind I pull out the map of my house and recount all the niches and nooks where I set angels, nativities, santas, and such. I want to round them up and bring the full herd in.
That’s the important part….the full herd. It is a personal challenge to get each and every one of those critters back into their storage container in one big sweep. Part of the ritual is to place those full and organized boxes of Christmas back in the attic, never to return for ten and a half months. It’s a challenge, a personal goal, a need I have.
Alas, it remains and illusive ideal.
Every year it would seem that all the ornaments got together in advance and elect one of their own to be that season’s stealth hold-out. I can just imagine that little guy making himself really little while I pass by on my quest for the perfectly put-away Christmas. And I know he breathes a sigh of relief knowing he has accomplished his mission when he sees me heading out to the garage with closed boxes and a satisfied smile on my face.
And I hate the moment I find him a day or so later. It just sticks in my gut.
This year it was a nasty little angel in a red calico dress wearing a crooked halo and holding a wooden sign that jabbed me with its message: “peace.”
Fat chance on that one, honey. You were my peace but you screwed that up when you didn’t reveal yourself, when you hid behind the magazines on the end table, when you made winning the “Christmas in the rearview mirror” war more important than the message on your nasty little sign.
I didn’t give her what she wanted.
I didn’t put her back in the box with her compadres where they had planned to hold a massive celebration and recognition event for her. I put her on the vanity where I do my hair and make-up so she would have to look at me every morning and think about what she had done. I want her to know that actions have consequences.
Problem is, I am the one doing the thinking.
About that word on her sign: peace. And I remember that once angels made a historic journey past the stars and planets to hover in a frozen sky where they shouted that word, not as a blessing but as a command. “Peace on earth!” they proclaimed.
“It’s time has come! There is a great one entering your space who will show you how to do it. Get it right this time!”
Hmmm….I wonder what the new year wil bring.