The crumbs scattered across the snowman plate. I held the last sugar cookie, dry, crispy, with its colored sugar topping sloughing off. Now, only a good enough candidate for dunking in my bitter coffee to make it edible. The rest of the cookies were long gone, Santa with his somewhat white beard, blue reindeer, green trees full of sprinkles…
Tubs were repacked with ornaments and stockings. The white lights I prefer, coiled and tied. Snowflakes, Crinkle Claus collection, blown glass trees, all wrapped in tissue paper and preserved. Poinsettias, glass pine cones, frosted gold beads, red berries are stored. No candles urging cherubs to ring the bells. No icicles dripping from branches.
The sparkle, the beauty, the mystery, packed.
The house seems flat, lifeless. January and its dark, crystalline atmosphere is bearing down. While the days are lengthening, it’s too early to tell.
I take my coffee and the last sugar cookie to the window and stare. The moon will soon be rising, but for now there’s starlight on snow. The white lights of the heavens twinkle and glow. A far off coyote howls, yip yipping like distorted bells. Icicles cling to the corners of buildings. Snowflakes sift down, barely there. Tree branches are sprinkled with a skiff of frost.
While the decorations of my house no longer celebrate His Birth, outside, in the Real World, decorations still abound. Perhaps there can be meaning in that. That now, outside of ourselves, His Beauty and Blessings still exist. That we can easily share Joy and Peace with others. With darkness, it makes the Light shine brighter.
I wish you many blessings in the new year to come. Look up, enjoy the white, twinkling lights of the heavens until it is time to make those sugar cookies once again.
****
For those of you who wonder… no, my decorations are still up. They slowly disappear over time, I’m reluctant to let them go. Although, by the Epiphany, I get serious! I do, however, often stop in the dark, and look up and revel in the multitude of stars that sparkle above me. And, yes, I did eat the last of the sugar cookies.
Find me here!
A beautifully written reflection. It just made me stop and wonder about that Holy night so long ago.
Beautifully written. Putting away Christmas always feels emotional and hard to do.
You certainly must have a multitude of stars to enjoy, living in the country!
I have an app on my phone that shows the different constellations which is fun. But no snow yet. The decorations went up late, so they’ll stay up a
little past Epiphany this year.