Christmas Detritus

It is mid-January and I don’t want to brag but I’ve already uprooted my Christmas tree, packed away all the decorations, and rolled up the strands of 1,700 lights and safely secured them in the closet until next year. Some people might point out that “safely secured in closet” is actually code for “shoved them in closet, slammed door quickly”, and I would not quibble with that assessment.

Every year, no matter how hard I try to remove the ornaments in an orderly fashion—putting all the Rodney Reindeer in one pile together, taking off the blown glass hearts one by one—it never fails that immediately after “safely securing” them in the Christmas closet—oops! Look, there’s one more ornament hanging on the tree, all buy its lonely self. 

Sigh.

After Christmas is a perfect time to rearrange furniture, to head into the Brand New—or in my case, The Slightly Used—New Year with a clean, fresh slate. It’s also a good way to seek out all the errant Christmas tree needles that have migrated to unexpected places. That’s why my dustpan is full of this time of year: fir needles and glitter plus this ornament that the cats have rolled under the rocker. Fir needle, glitter, an ornament AND Nerf gun “bullets”.

Beautifully wrapped mayhem 

One Sume Tradition that has grown up over the years is the epic Christmas Eve Nerf Battle.  The tradition has its roots in a Mullins Christmas Event from my childhood that involved a cork “pop-gun”—the kind of cheesy plastic rifle that shot corks attached to strings for easy retrieval—and the marble game of Aggravation. I don’t remember the rules, but I do remember how much fun it was to shoot the person whose marbles you had just sent back to “Start” --- adding injury to insult, if you will. Fast-forward a couple of decades to a Christmas Day dinner that included beautifully wrapped Nerf guns at each place setting. A wild rumpus ensued, and a tradition was born.

I expect to find Nerf bullets in odd locations until July-- when opening day of squirt gun season commences.