Where the holidays end, but the memories don’t.
Packing Up Christmas
The house always gets quieter when it’s time to put Christmas away.
Ornaments come off first . Glass ones wrapped carefully in old newspaper, names and headlines from years ago pressed against their shine. Some of them are chipped, some handmade, some older than the house itself. Each one holds a memory: first apartments, babies not sleeping, grandparents still alive, voices that used to fill the room and now only echo in it. You place them back in the box like you’re tucking away moments you’re not ready to let go of.
The lights follow. They never tangle the way you expect them to, just a soft resistance, like they don’t want to leave. Each bulb still warm from nights spent glowing, listening to laughter drift from the living room. When they go dark, the room feels bigger, emptier, like it’s exhaling after holding its breath for a month.
The tree is last. Real or fake, it doesn’t matter. It leaves behind the same ghost, needles in the carpet, a faint smell of pine, the outline where it stood like a shadow that won’t quite fade. The corner looks wrong without it, like a song ending before it gets to the chorus.
The holidays always promise more time than they give. More connection. More healing. More magic. And then suddenly they’re over, and life is asking you to pick up where you left off, even though you’re not the same as you were in November.
Putting decorations back in the box isn’t just cleaning up. It’s admitting the season has passed. It’s accepting that the people you missed are still gone, the chairs still empty, the year still waiting with all its uncertainty.
But it’s also proof that joy existed here. That warmth lived in these rooms. That for a little while, the world slowed down enough for love to be visible.
You close the lid, tape the box, and carry it to the garage or the basement. Not to forget, but to save.
Because next year, when you open it again, the memories will be waiting.
And so will the hope.
My God, My Music, My Life 