On Leaving Christmas

Try as I might, for the last (fill in the blank) years that I’ve been setting up the tree, the decor, the nativities, I turn around a day, a week, a month! later, and there it is: a piece of Christmas still in view. This is such a habit–failing?–that my husband asked me yesterday if I’d gotten it all. I hope so, I said. He, I’m sure, was picturing having to take the offending piece up into the attic if I couldn’t make it fit in the closet. 

But maybe it’s not such a bad thing to turn around in the middle of January and see a piece of Christmas still about. Maybe it’s a good reminder that the Spirit of the Season needs to last beyond the 25th.