The unadorned room
Seems shabbier than before
The season of joy.
Undecorated.
Stripped of its festive layers,
The room is naked.
Reduced to a husk,
From which to flower again
And face a new year.
January 5th, always feels to me like one of the saddest days of the year. Christmas has become a period I've looked forward to more and more over the last decade or so, but even when I didn't hold much stock by Yuletide, I still hated the day when the decorations had to come down.
Today I went around the house, slowly removing the festive decorations, undoing the lights and taking the baubles off the tree. Eventually, I squeezed the newly naked Nordmann Fir out of the nearest window, and took it off to the local Scout hut where it will be used for woodmanship practice. I returned to our newly un-Spruced lounge, and hoovered up the remaining traces of needle and tinsel. I looked around the sparse rooms which I had created, but didn't feel quite as depressed as I have in years gone by.
Maybe, in the same way that Christmas has grown on me, Twelfth Night won't groan on me anymore. Maybe I'm learning to greet a new year with my room clear.
