Random Moment of Beauty: Putting Away Christmas

A glorious juxtapostition of my birthday and the clearance sale at Wal-Mart meant that my mother and I brought home armfuls of glass ornaments, tinsel, cranberry wreaths, and colored lights for around $30, and guests at my 40th birthday party spent their time decorating our Christmas tree.  We neglected to get ornament hooks, so paper clips were happily pressed into service.  And come Epiphany morn, our well-worn Christmas tree was ever more resplendent.  I believe we have discovered a new family tradition!

Perhaps envigorated by its new garb, our tree remained fresh and green, barely dropping a handful of needles through Candlemas.  We spent the second day of February playing medieval Christmas music at full tilt and taking down decorations.  Boxes that had delivered gift pears to my parent's house were repurposed as sturdy boxes for the glass ornaments that had survived the twentysome days of Little Christmas.  I seldom buy them, given their price and delicacy, but in the happy coincidence of my birthday with Christmas clearance, I think I have discovered a new way to incarnate the celebration of full Christmas season. Pass it on!

Comments

elena maria vidal said…
Wonderful to see people keep all forty days of Christmas, in spite of the false priorities of the world. We just recently took our tree down, too. Now it's time for Carnival and Mardi Gras! Oh, it's great to be Catholic!!
12:01 PM
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