I used to feel compelled to start the year fresh. Holiday décor down! Ornaments packed away! Noncommittal winter wreath on the front door.
Some years, I topped it off with a “Vision Board” crowded with pictures of all those accomplishments that felt essential to make the new year worthwhile.
Somehow, getting organized and down to business felt very take charge.
Not so much this year.
For the first time, I began to see the wisdom of a newspaper colleague decades ago, who left her Christmas tree up for months. Granted, this was not 100% wise since her tree – gulp – was a live one. But she just couldn’t give up the glow of it.
If ever there was a time in need of glow, it’s now.
After the rollercoaster ride that has been Covid this winter, there is nothing like seeing a lit tree first thing in the morning and having that sense that something good is about to happen. Surprises! Music! Cookies! And all those memories of children and grandchildren making ornaments from paper and glue.
Out back, I picked the perfect year to have a professional string white lights on the trees and shrubs. I thought it would be more festive around the fire pit.
When he installed them in November, he said, “I can leave them up for awhile, you know.”
“Let me think about it,” I said. And after once night-lighting the backyard via kitchen remote, I had done all the necessary thinking.
“Yes!” I said. “How about till March?”
The scene looked especially magical with two lit table trees on the back porch. Why not put in new batteries and leave them up?
And after weeks of wondering when it’s safe to travel, nothing beats that little metal tree by the fireplace with travel ornaments on its branches. Somehow, the ox cart from Costa Rica, country guitar from Nashville and bright red lobster from Portland, Maine hold promise.
“There’s room for more!” they seem to say. “Just you wait.”
In a world weary of waiting and riding unexpected Covid tides, I can use this reminder. It seems more compelling than the vague superstition that leaving trees up after midnight on New Year’s Day will bring bad luck, or that they should definitely come by Epiphany or the evening before.
I am also willing to shush my late father’s voice that chatters on about how people illuminate their houses “like used car lots” and even worse, don’t take down the décor out of laziness.
It is not laziness, I hasten to tell him. Really. I don’t dread the packing up, the taking apart, the carefully wrapping in tissue paper. I don’t mind unwrapping the lamp post lights, unhanging the lighted hanging baskets, or removing the door garlands.
And so I’ve put new batteries in the hanging baskets out front, the door wreath, and the garlands. The red bow on the lamp post soldiers on through ice and snow. Thanks to their little timers, the front lights pop on magically for six hours in the dark. A used car lot, but a happy one.
As for the vision board, I settled on a picture of the ocean with two words: “Just breathe.” It’s a reminder to roll with the tides, to do those things that keep me in that psychologically ideal state of flow.
A friend, observing that this was very unlike me, worried that I was “letting Covid win.” I don’t think so. I think it’s more like letting Covid teach me – a lesson maybe about how to bend and not break so I’m in top shape for the next adventure.
Meanwhile, I’m set to celebrate everything. I’ll launch the Chinese New Year in style and salute the brave new Year of the Tiger. I’ll order carryout Chinese and hang my new Tigger ornament.
Next up is Valentine’s, when I’ll replace the Christmas ornaments with hearts. And after that? I’ll be ready to pack up, with a hopeful shout out to spring.
Copyright 2022 Pat Snyder
