Bye bye Christmas!

Christmas time is officially done at the Miller house.  That may make me crazy belated, but one week after New Years seems to be when we always clear the holiday out of the house.  So no more lights, in or out, no more Santas and snowmen, no more tree dripping with its decorative nostalgia.  Bye bye Christmas, see ya next year.

The nice thing about waiting this long, I'd say, is that it isn't such a distinctly sad process.  By this time, we're finally ready to be done with Christmas and on to the new year.  Packing away ornaments though, will always be an emotional process to me.  There's the ornament from the year we got engaged.  The one from our trip to Alaska, that one we got to commemorate our move into an actual house, our fist Christmas married, Madelyn's first Christmas, and more.  I think my favorite of our traditions is the fact that we buy an ornament to commemorate our year, every year.  We've also decided to do the same for each of our children, so that when they move out, they'll have their own nostalgic collection to start off their own trees in their own homes.  Each ornament is specifically picked to best represent  a monumental and memorable part of the preceding year.  And man, I really hope my kids are as sappy as me, so they can enjoy this tradition too.

But like I said, mixed emotions here.  Because I'm already considering next years ornaments.  What will be our monument in 2011?  In 2010, we learned how to be parents, I graduated with my Master's, Shane published his first book.  What will 2011 bring?  New jobs?  New babies?  New trials or tragedies?  I feel I'm learning again to acknowledge that living for the Lord and less for myself means that I'm always on the cusp of something, always on the edge of my seat.  We need to have our bags packed, be ready to move, ready to follow the guidance of the One who knows our waking and sleeping, the One who directs our path.  And if you think about it like that, the new year can be an immensely exciting thing.

So here we go, starting off with our tentative goals and plans, hopes and dreams, yet with our bags packed, ready to change it all at a moments notice.  And I guess we'll see what ornaments God has for us next year!