Once Christmas is over, it’s over for me.  Suddenly, all the red and green begins to look tired and the carols we were singing oh so recently bring no more tears to my eyes.  I’m done with it for this year and today was a good day to take out the tree.  After all, it’s been in the house for more than three weeks and was beginning to droop.

 

 

So, we said goodbye to the Brio layout for another year.

 

 

Goodbye to the favourite Christmas books; to Kipper’s Bear and the Jolly Postman.

 

 

All of Grandma’s legendary untangling skills were called upon when it came to sorting out the lights.

 

 

Eventually, it was all boxed up again and placed into the loft for the next eleven months or so. 

 

 

On a dreary December afternoon, there was quite an empty feeling.  Surprising how quickly one gets used to having things around, isn’t it?  Still, we are looking forward to our usual houseful of friends who “have no better offer” than to spend New Year’s Eve with us.  We word our invitations the same way every year and I always hope that no better offers do come along, for we’ve become quite a gang of regulars!  As a result, I’ll make arrangements for the “same procedure as every year” and having removed all the red and green, will replace it with silver and glitter, to make a very sparkly time for all.

 

 

But hang on a minute…who said I needed help with that?

 

 

We’d felt thankful all day that we appeared to have missed out on the white stuff that was falling here and there around the country but in the time it took to take the tree out, to clear up and then come back for the Christmas tree stand, look what happened.

 

 

We’ve shut it all out for the night and hope that by morning, it will all have melted.  In the meantime, our little twinkly tree is doing its best to fill in the space left by its huge predecessor on what seems like a very dark night indeed.

I might have had enough of red and green, but I’m not quite done with glitter and twinkle, yet.