Recovery

The gay apparel that we donned for the Christmas season (read "ugly sweaters") are once again consigned to the depths of our closets. Fa-la-la-la-la! The round of parties and traverse afar, bearing gifts, has merrily tinkled to an end, like an off-key music box. The hugs, the kisses, the season of sharing colds and flu are done. The halls are un-decked, we have ceased a-wassailing, and our nights are truly moving toward being silent again. Heavenly peace, indeed!

Today is cold to the nth power. I'm not going outside at all today because the wind chill is in negative numbers and the temperature is lower than the age of most of the clothes in my closet. Perhaps I am getting old, and, like my mom in her later years, am far less tolerant of the cold. Or maybe I'm just enjoying the fact that I am no longer compelled by my employment to be at a specific place at a specific time. Whatever.   It's too damned cold out.

To add to the after-holiday cheer, I'm using this brief separation from the real world-- the freezing, polar vortex world outside-- to clear out multiple items that have been breeding in my storage spaces: the spawn of neglected plastic bins and Christmas wreaths, forgotten fall decorations and abandoned household tools. I'm still not sure that von Helmholtz was wrong. How else to explain the spontaneous generation of all this stuff? The weather somehow helps in the disposal effort; it is useful to possess a cold heart sometimes.

And, like it or not, this bitterly cold day gives me an excuse to pause between the gifts and their return, between Christmas cards and thank-you notes, between holiday excess and new year's resolution. Downton Abbey is back, and Sherlock is coming (back from the dead!) The movies released for the holidays are still out there, waiting for an unbooked evening (so rare in the past month.) Let's hear a truly joyous "Gloria in excelsis Deo!" I love Christmas and everything that goes with it--but I also appreciate the absence of decorations and boxes and holiday clutter as we move into January. Ah, inertia! Ah, normality!

I'm not so intolerant that I can't recognize that there are good aspects of winter. On a frigid day, there is nothing better than a bowl of hot soup (preferably tomato) and a grilled cheese sandwich--or, in the middle of the afternoon, a steaming cup of spiced tea. The word 'delicious' was no doubt coined by someone who hopped back under the covers after a brief foray into a cold bedroom of a morning. And a chair to snuggle into that manages to catch a stray sunbeam from the living room window?…well, ask my cat about that.

I'm looking forward to reading my new books, trying some new recipes, figuring out how my Roomba works,  seeing a few movies I've missed, and transporting all the excess stuff to the dump. But not today. Today has been christened  "Christmas Recovery Day." It's official.