We took down the Christmas decorations this weekend.
It was something I dragged my feet on a little.
I’m not one of those people who can’t wait to rip it all down by December 26th.
I like to draw good-feelings out.
I have friends, completely lacking in morals, that had their tree down by Christmas night.
I have already called Dr. Phil.
I love the way a house feels when it’s sprinkled with sparkling white lights and Christmas greenery.
It’s hard to see that go.
Every year I take it all down knowing full-well that as soon as I do I will sit there in the new barrenness for hours afterwards just looking around thinking,
“What have I DONE?! How did we even LIVE LIKE THIS before?! This is an emptied out wasteland. What are we, sociopaths?!”
I watched Marie Kondo on Netflix to try to see if I could spark some joy.
All that sparked were the lights strands that Justin was violently trying to untangle by yanking like he was starting a mower from the tree as he yelled out, “WHY ARE THEY WRAPPED AROUND THE BASE?! THIS IS NOT HOW TREES SHOULD BE!”
We just blinked at him.
This also is like this every year.
As Chloe and I quietly boxed up the ornaments, she came near and leaned her head on me and said,
“I feel sad. I don’t want to be putting it away.”
It was then that I got to explain an important concept to her:
“The reason Christmas is special is because it’s one time a year. If we had it all up all year long, it would lose its magic,” I said.
“The only way we can really appreciate how wonderful it is is if we box it up the year before. We go through the sadness of it in that moment, trusting that the UN-boxing will be
so worth it later on.”
All of life is like that, really.
Where the only way to truly appreciate the beautiful things is to have gotten to them through some kind of struggle.
It’s how we learn to not take things for granted.
Pain and pleasure holding hands all through their life-long dance.
Fires ravaged my city last year,
and because of that I have never been so grateful for the things that I have.
I had a couple of life-threatening health scares over the last few years.
Every day afterwards has been like a bonus.
We struggled so much with money in the fall.
It taught my children to appreciate what they have in a whole new way they wouldn’t have known if everything had always come easy.
It taught them what miracles are.
We appreciate the warm, sparkly lights and cheerful songs because they come during the winter,
when branches fall bare, the air turns cold,
and colors turn gray.
But, we appreciate winter even in its desolation, because it houses spring underneath,
which is waking up below the frozen ground even when we cannot see it.
We push through all of life’s “boxing ups”;
The moves, the job changes,
selling off our baby things,
our daughters getting married…
We do it because the best choice we can make in life is to keep moving.
We do it to get to the un-boxing.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
