post holiday post

Putting away Christmas, emptying rooms. I'm not ready to end the suspension of schedules and responsibilities. (That's a perk of working for a school district that takes a full month off for the Christmas holiday!) I'd leave the Christmas tree up for another week, except that Ralph just sent me an email reminder that the curbside tree pick-up is tomorrow. (That was true when I started writing this post, three days ago!)

Once the tree is down, and the floor is covered with dried pine needles, and boxes have been hauled from the closet under the stairs, then the rest must follow. Sorting, wrapping, packing away, and remembering the good times we had with everyone in the house this Christmas.

                                                                    

P.S. Isn't this table runner beautiful? I WON it!
From the Connecting Threads blog. Isn't that cool?!

This ornament, a little mouse asleep in a walnut shell cradle, was made by our friend, Jenny, when we were newlyweds.  Poppy loved it, and hung it down low, where she could see it, instead of its usual place near the top of the tree. (Small ornaments on top, large ornaments on the bottom, colors and styles and motifs evenly distributed.) It's remarkable how a child refreshes the perspective at Christmas, from the decorative to the meaningful.

Here's Ralph doing my least favorite chore of the season,
unscrewing the posts that hold the tree in place. Thank you, Honey

This year we made it to the bonfire in Solvang/Santa Ynez. What a bonfire! Area residents are invited to bring their Christmas trees, and the pile is huge! Even as we were leaving, people were still bringing trees. And in the background the organizers played music; Light My Fire, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Hot-Hot-Hot... so cute. John gets so embarrassed when his mom bops to the music. And when his mom uses words like "bops." (Just doing my job!)

Then we went to Anderson's for Split Pea soup. Yummy! Ralph and John were good sports about getting their pictures taken, don't you think?