End of Season

Other people I know seem anxious to pack all the Christmas trappings away. (Read: Mrs. Pokey Petunia.) Marking the end of the season is always hard for me.

The Christmas holiday happens in a blur. The relatives come, and then go. (No matter what they think, I'm sorry to see them go.) Friends who haven't surfaced for months retreat back to their daily grinds until who knows when we'll be together again. And surely, there's a kind of hunkering down to survive the coldest stretch of winter. Maybe it's just the anticipation of the seasonal affective disorder. Or the cabin fever. Plus I'm a sentimental fool.

Looks like my son is a chip off the old sappy block. He helped me during the (warm!) daylight hours to take down the outdoor decorations. Then after a brief interlude, I fired up the Herb Alpert for the last hurrah. As we he was helping me take the lights off the tree, he was consoling the tree:

We'll miss you, Christmas tree. We'll miss you. But don't worry. We're going to put you outside and some nice guys will come and take you away in a nice big truck. A nice big garbage truck. [Imitating the tree] I don't want to go in the garbage truck. [Back to himself] It'll be okay. You can come back next year.

Umm...Yes...See you next year, tree. (So sorry about that whole mulching thing.)