Christmas is slowly disappearing from our house. It was present everywhere yesterday, but it's been vanishing tonight. The mantle is bare, its holiday trimmings removed but nothing yet taking their place. The tree is still up but most of the ornaments are gone and it won't be long before the lights have been removed. The tree itself will go out to the curb Thursday night and be picked up Friday morning. The chair that was moved to make room for the tree will soon be back in its standard spot. Yes, soon everything will settle back into its normal place. It's cold outside. Really cold. Without the chaos of Christmas to distract me, I can focus more of my attention on how cold it is.
We have a tradition in our family that we leave the tree up until at least Epiphany. It's our own reminder that Christmas lasts more than just a single day. Tomorrow is Epiphany. The tree's days are numbered.
I was helping my wife carry some ornaments to the basement and I remarked that we made it through the holiday without Dancing Santa. We received Dancing Santa a number of years ago from my wife's sister. Dancing Santa is about eighteen inches tall. He stands on a little gold platform with a button on it. When you push the button, Santa sings the opening lines from "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" while dancing. It can be quite annoying, especially when the button is pushed repeatedly. This year, Santa never came out. I thought my wife had purposefully left Santa in storage but she informed me that she simply couldn't find him. It bothers me when things are lost, even things I don't like. I needed to find Santa. I poked around in the basement and eventually found him, tucked away in a back corner, as if someone was intentionally trying to make him hard to find. I tried to remember if I was the one who put him away last year.
My wife suggested that we let Santa come upstairs for a day or two. The boys were excited to see their old friend again. I think his batteries will likely be spent by tomorrow. I have to admit, with all the Christmas decorations going away it was kind of nice to have something to occupy the open space. I might even suggest it as a new tradition - Dancing Santa comes out after the ornaments are off the tree.
3 comments:
For some reason I'm reminded of that creepy Santa that used to be in Aunt Joann's house -- it continually climbed up and down a ladder, making a very mechanical noise in the process
I remember that Santa! Very creepy, but then I find most animatronic things to be creepy.
I remember how stressed JoAnn's dog was by this intruder climbing up and down the ladder by the tree. Pepper would have attacked it if allowed to. I'm sure she was very confused by the very small man in the red suit.I know I was.
Melody
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