timber.

It came down like a flash of lightning.
In a second all the glory and splendor was absent.

My christmas tree. It was more than a little bit depressing to see it come down. And here's a confession: while i SHOULD have been helping pack away the ornaments, or heaving up the giant tupperware boxes for the lights, or sweeping the floor of stray scraps of garland, i was simply hiding in the back ground and just thinking. Thinking about all of this stuff:

A christmas tree almost always takes a much longer time to set up than to take down. Even though you have to search for all the right boxes and spots in which all the ornaments should be carefully placed, and there's extra cleaning to be done, i could swear we finished in half the time it took us to put the thing up. My hypothesis is that it all has to do with the attitude.

When the tree is being put up, everyone is nostalgic. We all take time to look at those ornaments we so dearly missed, and that remind us of the time that we ate way too much ice cream cake at Aunty Eileens the previous year. Or the giant ball ornament that doesn't even fit on your tree because your piano teacher's husband decided to go a little bit overboard three years ago. But you're thankful... My point is, all that time spent standing back to admire each and every segment of the tree takes up quite a bit of time.

And then there's the fact that it actually has to look good. Kevin and i spent about an hour just putting the lights on the tree. First of all, the stupid outlet was seemingly a mile away, with large buffet cabinets filled with fragile china, and various other objects. And then, after having dressed her all the way up to the neck, we realized that the other lights were a different colour than the first set. So if we continued on like that, we'd end up with a white bottom and a coloured head. It wouldn't have looked good. So we stripped her right down and started all over again. And then we realized that everything was tangled and one set of lights did not work, so we stripped her down all over again. Luckily the next time, we were successful. I wouldn't go so far as to say it looked good. But it was acceptable.

I'm also guessing that since the christmas tree is somewhat the symbol for the beginning of the season, to me it's kind of a time to savour. It's a good feeling putting up the tree no matter how tedious it is. And no matter how ugly i'm beginning to realize a lot of the ornaments i've made are.

Alternatively, in the removal of the tree, this sense of nostalgia has already faded away, and the action represents the ending of our holdiays. It's not quite something that one would like to draw out. It was actually pretty sad to see all the ornaments back in their boxes, the tree on the floor ready to be packed away (it's a fake tree. muchcheaper.).

It's really a shame that holidays are coming to an end but in a way i guess it's a good thing. I've been getting incredibly lazy and played around way too much. I'm sure a bit of school work will be good for me. Maybe get back into the good work habits. Not to mention it will be nice to see everyone at school again.

Hopeyourholidayswereawesome.

Song: Collide - Howie Day