As I make the last trip back to the attic to pack the Christmas pillows away, I survey the area designated for Christmas storage and realize that for one holiday it consumes one quarter of our huge attic. How does one holiday, not even an entire season, warrant such importance. Years of decorations, bits and pieces of Christmases past, some homemade, some store bought contained in cardboard and plastic. One year, I ambitiously decided to reorganize and store everything in color coded red and green bins, only to realize that I had not bought enough to store it all. Why I thought 3 bins would do  is a mystery and even more of a mystery is why I actually decided to take on the task to begin with. There is something about Christmas, as it approaches, that is magical and beautiful. I feel obligated to begin the process of sprinkling objects in every room of our house. As the years pass, I understand what my mother meant when she would say "I'm not taking out many decorations this year". Those years when they would not be home for Christmas because they were spending it with our families instead. We are not quite there but will be soon. This is the first year that neither of our sons came home for Christmas. Brad and I spent a quiet day with my sister, who is also on the edge of this change with her son. This was our first year ever not having a real tree. The prelit artificial tree, decorated with my dried hydrangea blossoms and White House ornament collection stood in the dining room. We rearranged the furniture in the front blue room to make room for the real tree but our attitude was half hearted and the empty space ended up half filled with the potted Princess Pine adorned with a tiny strand of lights and a ribbon tied to the top. The smaller table top trees and "Labrador ornament" tree completed the extent of my efforts.
Christmas came, Christmas went, the New Year, 2013 begins. Another opportunity as life brings change to our lives.