Fresh Air At Last

And no, I'm not referring to the fact that it's the end of December but it looks and feels like it's mid-March. It's kind of nuts, and I'm glad I'm not a skier because I think I'd be pretty depressed right about now.

I just finished taking all the Christmas decorations down. And it was so refreshing. It's such a weird thing - I love putting them up, I love having them up, I don't want to take them down . . . and yet when I do it's a bit of a relief. They don't take up much space at all, but when they come down it feels like the whole apartment has doubled in size. Isn't it the weirdest feeling?

I think it has something to do with Christmas being at the very end of the calender year. All the talk about new beginnings and renewal and starting fresh and stuff . . . taking the Christmas tree down feels a lot like that first day in the spring that you go out without a jacket comfortably.

Of course, that could have been today as well . . . perhaps Winter and I need to have another talk.

Anyway.

Part of it definitely has to do with Christmas overload. Between all the red and green crap on sale at the first of October and non-stop Christmas carols and commercials starting in Novemeber, even though I love (mostly) everything about the season I think a little part of me just gets sick of it. I mean, when else does society put on a collective play list of about a dozen songs and reduce the collective color palette to three or four colors? It's almost like everyone decides to just put life on hold for the last ten weeks of the year or so. And then, with the dropping of a few balls, perhaps some wine or bad-idea-make-out session, and a bunch of people who haven't stayed up past ten since college staying out all night we all grab our life-remotes and hit play together and finally get going again.

And dang, it's good to finally see the next part, you know? For the most part this is a pretty interesting movie I'm watching here and I generally look forward to each successive scene, so this two and a half month commercial feels a bit endless by the end.

(I feel like I should clarify that that was a metaphor . . . not for those of you I know of - but who knows who else is reading? I have seen the denizens of the internet, and some of them are scary!)

But . . . yeah. Now that they're gone, I feel like I can breathe again. I miss the stockings and candy canes a little bit, I'll be happy to see them again in eleven months. But for now it's just nice to have the space again - even if all that was occupied was a little corner that didn't have anything in it before anyway.

It'll be nice to fill it again when the time comes. :-)


P. ost S. cript
So I was going to post one of the billions of versions of "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" but I've had, like, 50% of my facebook friends post the Zooey Deschanel one in the last two days, so you've probably already seen it. Which leads to awesome news, because Lacey has now discovered an AMAZING new group! Here's hoping these girls are on Spotify . . . is this not one of the coolest East/West blendings you've ever heard?