oh, Happy Day!

I took down the tree! There is no evidence of Christmas remaining, except for the fiberoptic tree, which goes into a box, balls and all, when I am ready. The real tree was coming apart into little sprigs of dead pine all over the living room, and I was so tired of having it block out every bit of light that came through that window. Must rethink that location for next year.

The thing is, it wouldn't be so bad. I mean, Christmas is a nice and happy time. Until you are the person responsible for unpacking 17 boxes of accumulated CRAP that just clutters up the house for a minimum of three weeks. And then the person responsible for repacking these 17 boxes. Why can't we just have one box of ornaments, and then maybe a few small items for around the house? How lovely would that be? Buy a tree, take out THE box, trim the tree. Done.

Although I love the Village. Don't want to shortchange that. However - snow everywhere - the roads curl up - the people fall over - the lampposts don't light - pieces break when I pack them up - trees stick me and don't fit in the box that I think they came in. And this year, thanks to Puff and Rusty, I went light on the Village: no people, no snow, no street lights, no trees. It was a beautiful scene.

As I expected, I am so grateful that I didn't put up many lights outside. Just the dancing snowmen and the lighted one. And some ribbon and garland, but that comes down easily at any time, like the fiberoptic tree.

I just love to have my house back. I feel like it's spring already. The dust shows up on everything, and I can really see how bad of a housekeeper I am with all that clutter gone. It inspires me to vacuum and clean. For about two hours.

But now it's the dreaded New Years Eve. We are actually invited to a party this year - that's two years in a row! However, as the day got closer I found myself thinking how much I liked the years when we just went to my favorite restaurant, Bahr's, in Highlands, and ate their crab cakes and drank Kendall Jackson chardonnay. That is my favorite New Years Eve.

Now Brian has just come home and he is complaining that it's winter, so we shouldn't go to a shore restaurant. Contradictory to that, he says - but it will be packed! So we'll see what happens. Megan has a sore back, and no wonder, that training this week = overtraining. I told her to tell the coach she's sore, take a couple of days off later in the week. She won't even hear of it. I used to feel like a pressure parent, telling her not to miss practice. Now I can't get her to take a day off here and there. The county championship meet is Saturday afternoon, I don't want her to hurt herself; they're also using medicine balls again.

Meanwhile, I emailed all of Brian's teachers regarding their Christmas comments on the progress report. I asked two of them to fill in questionnaires for his neurologist, and I have been researching "executive dysfunction". I found a published paper on one site that sounded like it was written about Brian. But Kevin says it is like a horoscope, that it would apply to anybody. Well, again ... we'll see. I don't expect to hear back from any of them before school starts back up on Wednesday.

Well, there are just seven hours remaining in 2007. I must go and put them to good use.