Effing Elves

Every year it's the same old thing. Come Thanksgiving weekend, I start hauling boxes of Christmas stuff out of the hall closet. And I zip around the house putting up Christmas trees, lights, little stuffed snowmen, switching out my reqular dishes for Christmas dishes, you name it. This year, in a moment of crazed craftiness, I even made poinsettia fabric covered lampshades for my lamps. And it all looks beautiful. Then all of a sudden, it's over. Everything looks tired, the tree is dropping needles faster than a heroin addict, and I have to put all this crap away.

I hate putting away the Christmas stuff. Hate. Hate. Hate. Now putting up Christmas stuff is fun. You get to listen to or sing Christmas carols. You can have White Christmas playing in the dvd. The tree smells wonderful. The poinsettias are beautiful. You can drink eggnog w/ bourbon or hot buttered rum or spiked hot chocolate. But after Christmas? Bah freaking humbug. For starters, I never can figure out a good time to do the deed. I have friends who take the tree down asap after Christmas. Other friends deal with the mess on New Year's day or Epiphany. But we always seem to have stuff going on. And this past season set a record for being busy the week after Christmas. Add in a week like the one I've just been through and I'm desperate for just few elves to zip in after midnight so that I can wake up to a house with nary a shriveled poinsettia petal to be found and a nice, neat hallway closet with everything in its box and each box in its place. But since the chance that a cadre of elves will knock on my door and beg to be allowed to put away my Christmas decorations is nonexistent, I guess I just need to gut up and go start hauling all those boxes and bins out of the hall closet.

Either that or decide I like the way the dining room table looks with piles of Christmas decorations on it and that the dead Christmas tree in the living room adds a nice little redneck touch to the place.

Bah.