See ya St. Nick!

Enough binging, time for purging!

Tomorrow I intend to remove all signs of Christmas from my house.

Yup, I will be channeling my inner Sound of Music & singing to the tree, the holiday lights, and the zillions of snowman ornaments:

So long, Farewell ~
Aufwiedersehn, Goodnight!
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight...
So long, Farewell ~
Aufwiedersehn

Adeiu Adeiu Adeiu,
To yieu and yieu and yieu....

Every year, without fail, my slow perplexed husband will ask me, "Don't most people wait until after New Year's to un-decorate?"

And every year I respond by re-introducing myself, "Hi honey, I'm your wife, and I've been dismantling Christmas by the 27th for as long as we have been together. Keep up."

I am not by nature some sort of panicky neat freak, but I do like things tidy. Christmas is not a tidy time.

I don't remember where I heard this, but it has stuck with me forevvva: "What you do on New Year's Day is a precursor for things to come in the year ahead." Or something to that effect. And basically, I take it like this:

*If my house is destroyed on 01/01 - I'll never get it clean all year.
*Having a tree up past 01/01 is technically like having TWO Christmas' in one year, and yeah. I can barely handle ONE.
*If I'm tired and cleaning, then that's how I will spend all year...yada yada yada...you get the picture.

This old wives tale logic is also why 01/01 is the only day of the year I ever buy a lottery ticket - because if I win big? Then I should totally expect to be swimmin' in cash all year...right?

Other things I intend to do on the first day of 2010 include:

*Being kinder to strangers. And family. (Note to self: try to remember the family part this time!)
*Smiling more, and complaining less.
*FINISHING a crochet or crafty project.
*And pretty much hedging all my bets any possible way I can to insure my odds of having a better year than 2009.

Can't hurt.

Might help.