The holidays are quickly winding down, which means we're all facing critical decisions that are going to have to be made fairly soon or we risk dire consequences.
Ok, not vaccinations. I mean, at this point, if you haven't decided to get the jab(s), I'm not sure what anyone can do to persuade you. Good luck with that and you just keeping "doing your research." Whatever that means...
No, the critical decisions are about the deadlines we all face at this time of year. Basically, when do we call it a day on the holidays?
First big decision (that, hopefully most of you have already made) is when does the tree come down?
Used to be, back when trees were real and dinosaurs ruled the earth (ok, maybe a little after that) that decision was really sort of made for us. About the time there weren't any needles left, ya, time to drag that big boy to the curb.
Now that Christmas trees tend to have as much in common with their forest brethren as your average soda bottle, we have the ability to put off making the critical "stay or go" call until, well, forever. I mean, sure, people start to comment. But you can get away with it by telling them you're Druids. Or, since the tree is artificial, Reformed Druids.
Of course, you could follow the pattern established by the family of a former colleague of mine. For them, the tree went when the grandfather arose from his recliner, grabbed it and threw it out the front door into the yard. Apparently this decision had more to do with just how much holiday cheer he had consumed, how much time he had spent with the extended clan and how his bowl game bets were going.
I mean we all have our own traditions. Typically a little more benign, but...
Dovetailing nicely with the removal of the tree are important decisions about the status of the ornaments. For most of us, Christmas ornaments are more than just decorations. They're markers of moments, indicators of the passing of time, heirlooms to be handed down from generation to generation, yada, yada, yada. You know, all that stuff they tell you at the Christmas ornament store when they're charging you an unseemly amount for a glass Santa skiing in boxer shorts.
And that's true. Most of us have specific ornaments for specific offspring. Which, besides commemorating special times or events, has the added advantage of allowing our kids to fight over tree placement the way European nations used to fight over borders. As they say in real estate, it's all about location, location, location.
However, at some point, even the most sentimental of us has to realize that the special ornament your child made for you in elementary school may have seen better days. And looks about like you'd expect a decoration made when you turn a 7-year-old loose with Popsicle sticks, a glue gun and a snapshot of him just after he had almost successfully eaten a frosting-rich cupcake to look.
Now you can either go with the "we have a tree for the kids' ornaments" strategy (which includes locating that tree about as far away from human sight as possible). Or, you can try, "well, we have a lot of special ornaments that we save but don't put on the tree because we don't want anything to happen to them."
Or you can do what we did a few years ago when we boxed all those ornaments up and gave them to our now-grown children for "their trees." Which was greeted with the same general sentiment that telling them we had just had to put a family pet to sleep would be.
Actually, we had, unfortunately, had to do just that as well. Kind of a "rip the band aid" year around here.
Once the tree is down, the rest of the decisions sort of tumble into place, driven more by weather and your interest in climbing back up on the house than sentiment. Which is why the recent cold snap appears to be keeping the holiday spirit alive well into the new year. At least in my neighborhood.
And if you just can't bring yourself to let it go, here's at least something to think about. That inflated Santa in the outhouse is going to leave a dead spot on the grass if it's still there this summer. But from October on, you're just getting an early start on the holidays.
Like I said, critical decisions.