It's Over

It’s not that the Holiday is over that pleases me, it’s that the Christmas preparation is over. It is an exciting, wonderful, special, and a welcomed time every year, but it also nice when it’s over.

The long preparations now become “put-a-ways” and clean-ups.

The kids and grandkids are gone, back to their youthful playmates, their comfortable beds, and things familiar to them. It is right. It is the way things are in this day and age of close distance.

I will soon let the air out of the second blow up double mattress in one of the guest rooms; that bedroom will look a lot bigger.

We grandparents had a magnificent time preparing for the feast, the day, the festivities, the noise, the clutter and the chaos. It was wonderful and infectious; teenagers and a nine year old attacked with parents in support, but the ramparts held and we are able to do it again.

It was amazing when everyone left. In an instant I could hear the refrigerator hum again. I could hear the heat pipes creak in the walls, night lights were no longer needed to find one’s way to the bathroom and the hot water returned to normal. AND the sink, we haven’t seen the bottom of the sink in four days and how about the living room floor? It’s no longer festooned with opened toys, abandoned games, old bows, discarded garments, stored gifts, plastic bags of used wrappings and half-empty paper cups.

I would not change it for anything. I can’t wait for next Christmas assuming everyone wants to come here again. We’ll ask if they want to, for we are really over the river and through the woods and it takes a lot of effort to get to this house.

The next holiday is next week, New Years. A wonderful alone time. No noise makers, no shouting “Happy New Year.” I’ll be in bed by ten and will welcome in the next decade by sleeping with expectant wishes, profound hopes for global peace and continued wonderment at the sacred joy of the universe.

Join me!