So it’s officially all done for another year – yesterday I took down the tree and packed up other decorations inside while Sara was at work, and tonight I took advantage of a particularly nice day outside to put away all of the lights.
And admittedly it’s been a little sad, not seeing flickering lights in the family room or gazing out over our increasingly expansive Lego Holiday Village. I still left all of the little scented fan thingys out – figured we might as well use them up because they won’t really store for next year, but Christmas gifts are for the most part mixed in with our regular stuff at this point, pretty much all of the holiday snacks are gone from the fridge, and even the TV seems to have returned to its normal, boring schedule with no offerings of Home Alone or A Christmas Story in sight…
I guess I’ve been a little mellow about it as I’ve put stuff away over the last two days. I always hate to see it go because I absolutely love Christmastime. And 2012 was a pretty good one – got to spend a little more time with Sara than work has let me in the past, put together a ton of Legos, even went to Disney World on Christmas Eve, which was certainly a highlight! And it’s one of those cases where I know that it can’t last forever because then it just wouldn’t be as special anymore, but every year for as much fun as I have with this season, it just seems to go by so quick and there’s always something more that I look back saying I wish I could’ve done.
- Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights – This probably one of my favorite holiday things to do over at Disney, but I don’t think we’ve made it the last couple of years. Well, truth be told almost all of it is “my favorite,” so it’s really hard to choose … I think this year we were over there for two days and made it to Epcot (Candlelight Processional) and the Magic Kingdom (Christmas Eve). There’s just so much to see and do over there that I think the only times we’ve truly done everything was when we’d spend the night and make a weekend out of it. Maybe in 2013!
- Baking Christmas Cookies – We actually didn’t do any this year because Sara had just started a new diet and it was really important for her to not have any bad influences around the house that could deter her progress, but I always really enjoy baking and mailing cookies out to friends and family as a way to spread a little holiday cheer.
- REALLY Getting Into Christmas Shopping – We honestly dialed back a lot on gifts this year, too, because we’ve got some big expenses coming up in 2013 that require our complete and undivided attention … which was kind of a bummer because I have a lot of fun picking out gifts for people and since I grew up extraordinarily spoiled, needless to say I kind of enjoy receiving them, too!
So there’s a part of me that wishes we could celebrate Christmas just a little longer – maybe until the end of January or so? I could go and buy another ham, roll out the DVDs to watch some of the Christmas specials that we missed, and just spend a bit more time vegging out on the couch in my underwear, building Lego spaceships with no particular place to go unless it’s to tour Christmas decorations around the neighborhood! I suppose Mom would have to send down another batch of Santa cookies, too, and as for the big guy himself and another round of presents…
Ok, ok, so maybe it’s not very realistic, and to be honest, I’ve got plenty of big things to look forward to in 2013, too. I still can’t wait ’til Christmas is here again only 11 months from now, but I suppose in the meantime if I can get some of this other stuff done over the next year, it’ll just make celebrating from Thanksgiving to New Years all the more special.
Only 352 more days to go…
:santa: