I cry the day that I take the tree down...

For those of you who are regular readers, sorry I haven't posted in a while. To all four of you, I keep a running list of blog topics on my whiteboard and it keeps getting longer and longer, while my available writing time doesn't seem to coincide. I thought life was supposed to calm down after the holidays were over. But, for some reason, it seems like December was just a "revving up" time for January. Adding re-establishing our daily routines, having my brother's family in town until last Friday, my sister's birthday, potty training attempt #2, organizing and preparing for my monthly FHE lesson swap, teaching last Sunday, Relief Society meetings, service activities, playdates, reading a great book, and taking down Christmas to my "normal" day--it seems I have absolutely no time time for anything else right now. Unfortunately, it's not looking like things will slow down any time soon. I should actually be folding laundry right now--but that will wait for a few minutes while I blog. Right?

The point of today's post isn't actually to inform or complain about my busy schedule. But, instead, to tell a story about the last item on that list: taking Christmas down. Kallie is the biggest fan of Christmas I have ever seen. She loves the lights, the tree, the ornaments, the hot chocolate, the presents, the parties...EVERYTHING. Over the holidays, she literally jumped up and down every morning when she woke up and saw the tree in the family room. It was her self-appointed job to plug in the lights and flip the switches on the power strips to ensure our home was sufficiently lit during the holidays.

A week ago, (has it really been that long already?), we put Kallie to bed after FHE and took down our Christmas decorations. The next morning was my day to sleep in...but I woke up a little after 7 a.m. to hear Kallie CRYING. And, I don't mean her fake, tired, or complaining cries--this was a real, true, heartfelt cry. I thought she might have hurt herself, so I hopped out of bed to go see what happened. When I got into the family room, Ryan was sitting there trying not to smile. Apparently, Kallie walked out, saw that the tree was gone and burst into tears. She was so sad that Christmas was over. Later that day, she asked if we were going to put away the kitchen she and Whitney got for Christmas--and then, it dawned on me: Maybe she thought that the Christmas presents had to go away with the lights and decorations! The past week since that incident has been filled with reassurances that Christmas will come again next year, people will once again put lights on their homes and in their yards, and she can keep playing with the toys she got even though it's not Christmas. Oh--to have the honesty of emotion and the complete freedom of expression that children have! If I were her, I would have cried, too!