I always decorate the house for Christmas over weeks, not days. The stripping as the season nears the end also takes time. My first action this week was to gather up all the displayed Christmas cards, put a few of my favorites in a card album, and add the rest to my craft bin.
Today I'm returning the dining room table to ordinary time. I love my Christmas placemats, but the twelve days they depict ended with Epiphany, so they are washed off and ready to go back in the Christmas drawer until next year. The fancy Christmas balls never go on the tree because of all the pins that tend to fall out. They add to the beauty of the table, but it's time to collect all the pins and bangles they've dropped, put them back on, and gently wrap and return them to their home in the tin until next year. The rich looking table cloth will come off next. I made it from a bolt of material a friend gave me after she had a chair reupholstered. I will spot clean it unless it needs a trip to the dry cleaners. And then the plain wood of the table will once again be relatively bare. All of this takes on a metaphorical meaning for me. The return to relative bareness reminds me that we should strip and bare our souls every time we enter the confessional.
