Christmas is out to get me. That’s right. The ghosts of
Christmas-decorations past are slowly driving me mad, and I can’t
take it anymore.
Christmas is out to get me. That’s right. The ghosts of Christmas-decorations past are slowly driving me mad, and I can’t take it anymore.
It started a couple weeks ago. With Christmas officially ended, I began to remove all traces of the festive holiday season from my home. But apparently, the festive holiday season had other ideas, because I swear to you, it kept coming back.
It was scary. I’d take down a garland, only to find it draped over the same window five minutes later. I’d move an ornament from the tree to the box, only to find the same ornament sitting merrily atop the tree, grinning with an evil look directed at me. I’d toss Santa throw pillows into a container and shove the box into the garage, only to plop down onto the couch and pull a lumpy Santa pillow out from underneath the cushion.
So finally, I left it alone. Hey, I’m not one to fight the hands of fate or karma or whatever. If my Christmas decor had decided it wanted to hang out a while longer, who was I to say no? Especially when it kept coming back anyway, despite all my efforts to box it up and put it away.
But after a week, I wasn’t feeling so merry. In fact, I was feeling downright scrooge-like, and I wanted Christmas gone. In fact, I wanted it banished to the garage in its plastic storage boxes until next year so that I wasn’t celebrating Valentine’s Day by the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree.
But it’s hard to trick stubborn Christmas decor. I mean, what do you do? I don’t know any anti-Christmas spells – or any spells at all for that matter. And I felt like an idiot walking around the house, threatening my collection of Surfing Santas with breakage if they didn’t stay in the box until next year like good little ornaments.
But I packed up Christmas anyway. I started with the garland, taking it down from every single window in the house. I swear to you, I checked every window twice. There was not one speck of garland left. And the minute I put the box on the shelf in the garage and walked into the hall bathroom, there it was. A huge piece of garland was hanging defiantly across the mirror.
Well, I told that garland who was boss. And I put it in the box with the other garland, and I yelled at them all to stay put. I was so mad I didn’t even care that the entire neighborhood could see me crazily screeching at the boxes in my garage.
Then I started on the pillows. I packed them up, squishing them into a box. And the ornaments were sealed into bubble wrap and then gently put into ornament containers. Even the giant faux tree in the family room was disassembled and jammed back into its box. But it put up quite a fight, let me tell you. I’m still vacuuming up fake pine needles.
And after a few hours, Christmas was gone, banished to the garage until next year. And I felt good. In fact, I felt so good, I wandered through the house, humming to myself.
And that’s when I noticed the trees.
I had these skinny, faux Christmas trees that I put through the hallway. And I swear I put them in their box, sealed it with duct tape, put the darned thing in the garage and screeched at it. But there they were. Sitting in the hallway, looking like they hadn’t been in a box since Thanksgiving.
And right then, at that very moment I knew. I knew that I hated those trees. And I also knew that in order to get rid of the evil, plastic things I’d have to toss them in the trash – or better yet, take them to the nearest landfill.
But I couldn’t. After all, they were cute, even if they were evil. And besides, my cold, penny-pinching heart wouldn’t let me just toss them away. I’d gotten them at a closeout sale for $1 each – you don’t just toss out a good bargain like that. So I boxed them up, threatened them with some vague words I’d heard in the latest “Harry Potter” film and placed them in the highest recesses of the garage.
And then I walked through my Christmas-free home and felt satisfied. Until I walked out the door and stepped onto the grinning Santa welcome mat, of course.
