Christmas is finally over

Christmas is finally over at our house. It took all of Saturday and a piece of Sunday to get the deed done. We were late this year, the end arriving five days after the calendar's end of Christmas, Jan. 6 (Epiphany). But other commitments interfered — the birth of a grandson and the five-day trip to help out with the newborn,  and the simple magnitude of the task.

Our  Christmas decorations have expanded over the years. Like our library of Christmas music — once just a couple of LPs offered cheap by retailers, now a cupboard full of cassette tapes, CDs and digital music — our Christmas decorations have multiplied exponentially. Year after year, we've added an item or two to our collection until now every room in the house and several spots outdoors get the Christmas trimmings. We've gone from one tree to two because my wife had collected so many angel ornaments that she had to have a second tree to display them all. Christmas-themed placemats, hand towels and even photographs now are pulled from boxes in the attic and displayed. Furniture has to be moved to make room for the trees. Statuettes, wall hangings and knick-knacks find their places in every room.

But now it's done for another 11 months. The live tree, still green and glossy, lies by the curb to be turned to compost or whatever the city does with thousands of trees each year. The boxes are back in the attic to be forgotten for another 11 months. Last night, I poured a mug of the last of the Christmas wassail and gulped the spicy, hot fruit juice one last time.

Christmas is truly over now. When does spring come?