Crisp and Cold The decorations are down, the lights are dark, the pine needles vacuumed away…my living room is shadowy and empty. It’s amazing how a month of red, shiny, glowing items can transform a room – bring so much cheer and then suddenly be swept away as if it were never here. Taking down the decorations each year for me takes some kind of herculean effort that I seem to muster up at odd hours of the night (finished the clean up at 1:30am). I had been avoiding it for hours, but after awhile, I just knew it was time to face it. The next day, the kids have the worst morning on record…there is crying, screaming, resistance on every level…Kayla wants to go back to bed, Zachary wants to know where the tree went, Abby keeps pointing to the empty corner with an odd look on her face. (If you heard great wailing wherever you were this morning, I guarantee that was the sound of my children mourning this great loss.) It’s so hard to move on after Christmas…it’s as if the whole year crescendos at that moment. And even though we don’t really recognize it or acknowledge the build up through the year – it seems to be there silently pushing us on. But today, there is no build up; it is quiet and stark. It snowed here today…a silent, steady, fluffy, flaky cloud of white. As I walked outside, I stopped for a moment. I’m always in awe of the ultra quietness of a snowstorm. It’s as if the whole world is sleeping…hibernating…waiting. Waiting for next Christmas, for the rebirth, for the next celebration. Yet for me, it all seems too far away to begin any countdown. I go home, look around my house…the holiday clutter is gone – everything is crisp, clean, cold. I’m at peace here – I don’t know what will happen next, I don’t know what direction I will take, I don’t know what to look forward to…so maybe I just need to look up instead. He’s been waiting, I’m sure.