The Secrets of Christmas Past

I was sitting in the dining room, biting them all in half and returning them to their little cubby holes. My teeth marks were nicely outlined along the edges of ornate brown chocolate. Marriage, simplified, is saving half a fancy chocolate for your spouse. It is sharing. And really it is kind of a special thing—who else in the world would want to eat a chocolate that you bit off of already?

Your child, that’s who. The chocolates were shuffled away to safety, each tantalizing bite enjoyed while little eyes could not observe the satisfied expression on my face. Those chocolates were one of the Secrets of Christmas Past. Secrets, because the children need not know about them; Past, because I needed to turn Christmas into the past, ASAP.

I can feel it, this is going to be one of those random rambling posts that doesn’t make sense. It’s the day after Christmas, what did you expect? I ate about 2,000 calories in cookies yesterday. I’m sure that has given me some sort of temporary brain damage.

So anyway, today I needed to turn Christmas into the past. Once a holiday is done, its ornaments hang in the house like a bunch of stagnant water in a bucket breeding mosquitoes. It had to go. Like a whirlwind, Christmas came fluttering down, back into boxes, leaving behind one thousand little green needles on the floor. I’m not a big fan of that ideology where you keep all the decorations up to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas. Those can be celebrated with Secrets of Christmas Past, instead of decorations.

Once all signs of Christmas decorations were gone, suddenly, like magic, Christmas was in the past. I was pretty sure, anyway. I wanted to be certain. So while the children were blissfully busy, I went outside. What do you know, it was warm out, and very un-Christmas-like. I got on the kids’ tire swing, and a magical un-Christmas-like moment happened: I stood on that thing and glided through the air like an acrobat. I was a tight rope walker. I was in the circus. Most importantly, I was a tired woman standing on a tire like a fool and no one was around to notice. The blue sky looked distinctly like January. I was satisfied. Christmas was done. I went inside and ate some more of the Secrets of Christmas Past.

A train just went by. It did not sound like the Polar Express. I think I didn’t hear a single train all of December. It’s like the decorations had buffered the house, silencing the noise. There is a deformed looking moon outside. A waning gibbous. It looks very un-Christmas-like. Time to renew the moon, and the year, like I renewed the house.

I think I will go and get Day 2 out of “The Twelve Days of Hot Cocoa.” Cinnamon flavor. The Secrets of Christmas Past will be keeping me nice and warm and festive through to the New Year.

Wait, was day 2 yesterday, or today? And it is almost midnight, now I’m even more confused. Do I need to drink two hot cocoas tonight to catch up? I am lost somewhere between Christmas and Christmas Past—it’s that Christmas cookie brain damage.