Packing Away Christmas

I've started packing away some of my Christmas stuff tonight. I hate this part. Everything seems so bare when I put the Christmas stuff away. But, I also get eager to have the house de-Kringled and ready for spring. Generally it takes me many, many weeks to get around to getting the tree down, but I want to get to it sooner this year.

I feel a need to have some control in my life, and there are so few things I can control at the moment that this seems like one way to gain a bit. Or at least the appearance of some control.

One of the things I am putting away tonight is this drawing. My great niece Chrissy did this on Christmas Eve, 1985 at my mom's house. I remember her doing it. I can't recall how old she was, but about five or six I'd guess.



She gave me the drawing and I kept it for years. I also wrote her name and the date on the back, which is why I know when it was. A few years ago I ran across it and decided to take it and get it mounted and matted. I framed it and have kept it around since.

I used to have it hanging on the wall all the time but decided the colors would fade that way, as well as the paper fall apart, so I started just puting it out during the holiday season. You may not be able to tell from this rather poor photo I took, but it was done on notebook paper with crayons. Don't you love children's art?

Tonight was Chicks and we had a great time. We laughed so hard for so long tonight. It was a great - I really needed to laugh. It felt good to be sharing humor with that group of people.

Laughing is not something I'm doing enough of lately. Maybe I need the writer's strike to be over.