Un-Christmas-ing

I have just sat down after a long round of un-Christmas-ing the house. I'm covered in glitter and feeling a little bit bummed that it is no longer the holiday season. I am, however, ready for life to go back to "normal". The holiday's are exhausting. Aside from normal life, it seems like there are a million things to do to prep for Christmas day. Then, within a couple of minutes of delving into wrapping paper and ribbon covered gifts, it all over. A month of preparations, shopping, decorating, and the like and its all over in the blink of an eye.
Somehow, I volunteered myself to have Christmas at my house this year. I think I thought that someone else would "man-up" and offer to have it at their house. Apparently everyone thought it would be a great idea for me to host Christmas brunch in my townhome. With barely enough seating, nine people, a breakfast casserole, and a wanna-be-Martha-Stewart Christmas tree my family had a nice morning. Everyone managed to nice to each other. The cat only drank part of my mom's bloody mary. And it was all over by 2:00 pm. After a short coma on the couch, I started to clean up the aftermath. I can definitely say now that I have a much greater appreciation for my parents and grandparents. All the years that they have hosted Christmas, its no wonder that they jumped at the chance for someone else to do it.
Now that I am almost done un-decorating, my house feels a little bit barren. I will definitely miss the tree, garlands, wreath and Christmas cookie jar. What I think I will miss seeing the most is the nativity. My nativity was on the mantle above my fireplace and could be seen from everywhere on the first floor. I loved seeing it each morning when I came flying down the stairs to hurriedly feed the dogs and rush out the door to work. It made me stop and think about what the Christmas season really means and how blessed we are to have the Savior in our lives.
This year I also tried really hard to take pictures during our brunch. Sadly, the only pictures I actually took were of the dogs and cat. I hope your holiday season was a good as mine!