The End of Christmas

I spent all day yesterday trying to write this post. All day! If I wasn’t writing, rewriting, throwing it away and starting to write the whole thing over, I was thinking about it, pondering it, ruminating over it. Nothing was working. I wanted to talk about New Year’s, and how much I love it. I wanted to talk about clean slates, fresh starts, setting goals and aiming higher.

But I couldn’t. Nothing would come together. It wasn’t just the words that wouldn’t come; it was the very thoughts themselves. A couple of sentences would work, and then it would all peter out. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I loved the subject; I sort of knew what I wanted to say, and yet nothing was working. I finally realized the words wouldn’t come because I was sad Christmas was over.

We spent six days with Paul’s family, with my family, and with the family of Paul’s best friend in high school. We cooked and ate and played board games. We were busy every single minute. When everyone left, we sank onto the sofa and sat quietly for a moment. We were exhausted. We had worked hard to make sure it was a good Christmas.

We had stayed up late with half of the family and had gotten up early with the other half. As much fun as we had and as happy as we were to see everyone, we told ourselves we would be happy when Christmas was over so we could rest.

Yesterday was our first day with no family or friends at the house. We were free to wear pajamas all day and eat nothing but leftovers. We were thrilled, but as the day wore on we both felt a little sadder than before.

Could it be? Was it even possible that we missed all the hullabaloo?

As Paul and I stood in the kitchen last night, we started wandering aimlessly, and we realized we missed them. We missed it all, the noise, the chaos, the lack of sleep, even the parts where we were sure some cheating had been going on during the Scrabble game.

We had been going 90 miles an hour, and we came to a screeching halt. So as happy as I am to see New Year’s on its way, for just a little bit in this time between holidays, we will reminisce about the fun we had; we will be a little sad, and then we’ll start planning all kinds of fun for next Christmas.