Susan Writes

  ‘Tis the week after Christmas, and it’s time to take down, put away, and clean. To me, this week between Christmas and New Year’s Day seems like a whole week of Mondays. A time to start new, a beginning. On Mondays I am eager and have energy, and I think I can accomplish anything and everything. My day’s to-do list is long and usually morphs into my week’s list.

The giftwrap has to go! All those Christmas gift bags have multiplied and there’s a mess of paper and ribbon. Sort, trash, and pack away! And the sticky kitchen floor has to be mopped. How much honey and sugar was dribbled on it?

Put away Christmas. The dried greenery goes out the door. No more holly berries rolling across the floor. But I really like our big gingerbread house and carolers, one for each of our Grands and their parents. Why hide them away? And the nativity set, the one that’s graced our living room for 48 years, why stash it in a box just because the calendar says January?

Then there’s the dilemma of when to take down the Christmas tree. It’s said that you drag all your baggage and bad luck from last year into the New Year if your tree is up when the bells toll midnight on December 31^st. Our Christmas tree is the perfect backdrop for my early morning reading corner and I’m still savoring every ornament that reminds me of Christmases past. If it’s really bad luck to leave a Christmas tree up after the New Year, then 2017 may not be a good year for me.

I could be inspired by my friend Alicia who does the same thing every year during this week. She cleans out drawers, every drawer in her house, she says. She hates that Christmas is over and this task keeps her busy and is her therapy. She doesn’t say, but I know, that she is a super organized and she’s needs everything in place. And she has a garage sale every spring so cleaning out gives her a jump-start. I think I’ll skip Alicia’s therapy.

My to-do list is long. It spans from trashing dry holly branches to reading the most recent Jeffery Archer book. From mopping the sticky kitchen floor to looking at Christmas cards that were glanced at and stacked in a basket. From cleaning to developing pictures and writing.

It’s seems like a good time to go through those hundreds of pictures on my phone. Develop some. Put them in the Grands’ albums. It’s time to make notes of Christmas memories. How my eight Grands acted as if they liked the new house shoes I tramped all over town to buy. How they really liked my new game, Bingo.

The cleaning and putting away can wait. I need quiet and calm. Time to relish Christmas memories and read a good book. There’s always another Monday and a new to-do list.

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Filed under: Christmas | Tagged: after Christmas, clean up |