It’s early morning on almost the last day of the year and here I sit, having been up already for hours, tired and watching the slow but inevitable breaking of dawn. 

I am very tired as I didn’t sleep much last night.  Noises in the house; weird and un-locatable noises.  Plus just lots and lots on my mind as the year crawls to an end.

I am here with the darkened Christmas Tree.  It has done its job yet again this year.  Not a real tree- haven’t had one of those in over ten years though I do still much prefer them over the artificial ones- but a nice and functional tree nonetheless. 

The tree goes up, the lights are hooked up and checked.  The ornaments come up in their box from the basement and then come out of their box and get hung upon the tree by all of us.  In this house our old Santa topper does not fit on the tree without getting jammed into the ceiling so we leave old Santa off and place him elsewhere.  The skirt goes around the tree and, on Christmas Eve, the presents get placed underneath and we usually get to bed late.

Christmas morning comes and we usually eat and then open presents.  It is a very enjoyable time for all of us I think. 

The tree gets lit a few more times before New Year’s Day, when we remember to do so.  Then, sometime shortly after, the ornaments are removed and placed back into their box and the tree taken apart and placed into its box.

All of the decorations, including the ones outside, are returned to their place in the basement storage room to wait in silence for another year until we pull them out again and do it all, all over again.

There will come a day when our boys are grown and gone and it all just won’t be the same.  There are the times when you are young when this time of year is so magical.  That then fades but reappears if you are one day later in life blessed with children of your own.  That then also fades but I understand it reappears then to a degree if you are furthermore blessed with grandkids.  And so it goes.

Right now the light of early morning breaks brighter.  It is cold, below zero.  The Christmas Tree and a few other decorations are within eyesight but darkened in contrast to the morning which shines now cold and bright outside the windows of this room.  They loom darkened as obvious reminders of the season that was.  In a week I believe they will all be gone.

Long gone now are the presents and reminders of what it was like as we prepared to make each other a bit happier with our gifts- just a week ago I was still shopping with my boys.  This morning when I took our dogs out through the garage I found a tiny strip of wrapping paper on the floor.  A tiny reminder of what was, just a week ago.

I remember the attic at my grandmother’s house where we kept all of the Christmas decorations including her box of used bows.  It seemed frozen in time, seldom visited, and somewhat sad between Decembers.  Much like our simple basement storage room will be not too long from now.

I am so very tired and it is a very cold day, almost at the end of another year.