Does Your Christmas Tree Need Viagra? Post Christmas Ponderings….

“Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum
How droopy are thy branches;
They may be green and still hold balls
But touch a limb and needles fall…
Oh Tannenbaum Oh Tannenbaum
How you so need Viagra.”

Like that? Apologies to the songwriter. I am visiting my daughter’s family in Alabama and one of my requests was that she leave their cute house decorated for Christmas. So, she complied. However, their authentic scotch pine has a bad case of scoliosis and the star is parallel to the ceiling. Or peeking out the front window seeking its galaxy. And the tree is painfully straining to hold the lights onto branches that become more naked with each puff from the furnace.

But we just opened our gifts and so Christmas is now officially one step closer to being over for me. I am, as soon as this blog is posted, finishing my AT.C.L.=Annual Tacky Christmas Letter which always finds its way to the homes of my victims in January. Standard operating procedure for me. I leisurely lay-away early, power shop late, wrap hurriedly which means horribly, and decorate in between a busy agenda.

I may leave my tree up until mid-January or later. Now…when people slow down in front of my house and shake their heads in disgust at my outside decorations, and birds start building nests in Santa’s beard…yeah, I might need to rotate the inventory to Easter.

The point of this blog? I won’t hurry Christmas. Not in coming and not in going. No doubt about it: had I been invited to the manger in Bethlehem, I would have been the first to come, the last to leave, and the one who never stopped talking. Or writing. And loving on all those animals! Sheer heaven for this lady–a newborn and cows. Throw in a miniature donkey and I would have harked like the herald angels: “It’s all good in the ‘hood!” By the way. You do know the two purposes of angels, don’t you? (I’ll just insert the tune from ‘Jepardy’ while you think….). Times up! What is: to guard and to deliver messages. Wow! Like Twitter with a seat belt. Okay… maybe not.

Back to the droopy Christmas tree. It needs a dose of meds or laid to rest in a compost pile. It has served ths family holding treasured homemade ornaments of yarn and glitter, bearing lights that remind us to prepare our hearts for the Light of the World. The evergreen branches remind us that the love that Mary cradled is forever. But too soon it is all over. Time to pack the holiday away.

Or not.

This year, in our post-Christmas rush to return our homes back to ordinary, “oh come let us really adore him” and make “joy to the world” our mission. Tarry at the manger; God did not create ‘hurry’ and the dimension of time doesn’t exist with the Guy in the Sky.

Advent prepares us for the adventure. Calendars mandate we punch our Christmas time cards and hurry into New Year’s.
Maybe we just need to change our hearts to hold the babe a bit longer.

After all… that wee King is in no hurry to leave. Easter can wait.

****And this is my post-Christmas post. Merry After Christmas and New Year Happiness to you and yours. Thanks for reading.