Why is it that we spend weeks (or months) preparing for Christmas, then we can’t wait to finish off our celebration and move on to the next thing?

Walk into a store on December 26^th and they are already replacing Christmas things with Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. It’s an annual exercise is realizing that Edith Wharton was write when she wrote the following in The Age of Innocence:

“…It was one of the great livery-stableman’s most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.”

With all the over-indulgence that comes before Christmas, it’s not surprising that people want to move on. But December 25th is the first day of the Christmas season, not the last. Please don’t take your decorations down until the 12 Days of Christmas have passed.  (I don’t care what the stores tell you.  The 12 days start with Christmas, they don’t end there.) Keep listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies. Eat special treats and spend time with the people you love.

You worked hard to prepare for Christmas. Now let yourself enjoy the fruit of your labor.