Farewell to the Holidays

The saddest day of the holidays is doubtlessly the day we pack all our holiday decorations up and say goodbye until next year. The house is clean, but it's no longer festive. Here's Mam saying a fond farewell to our cheerful little snowman.And here is Skimble, our wizard of a cat, enjoying watching Daddy put the tree lights away...or enjoying flickering blinky things on the wall, at least.Bleh. Taking down the decorations means getting back into the school routine. I wasn't ready. The holidays were really fun this year...at least as soon as Christmas arrived and there were new toys an a lot less wound-up anticipation. School means fixing lunches every night, getting out of bed in the morning and not showering as often as I'd really like to. But a couple days and a wee bit less sanity later and I'd changed my mind. I couldn't wait to have the house to myself for a few seconds.

Fortunately, putting the Christmas decorations away also means there's no decorative use for a gingerbread house. It may taste like cardboard, but to the kids, at least, it makes the end of their vacation that much more bearable.