Today, the holidays officially ended for 2008 at our house. Today Daughter #1 and I stripped the yard and bushes of their red and green lights; we grabbed the Christmas wreaths from their outside posts, tossed them into their containers; and banished them to the shed along with Santa and the snowman. Then we came inside, "raped' the Christmas tree, stripping it bare and stuffing it's wasted remnants callously into a box, which we sealed tight with stripping tape.

Then, we gathered up Mr & Mrs. Santa, the stockings, the nutcrackers, etc., etc., burying them deep at the back of the closet to be totally ignored for another year. And not even a moment's twinge of conscience from either of us!!

I'm eating the last piece of Christmas pie as I write this! Hoorah! It's over for another year!

Life can return to normal once more! We can all get back to our cranky, complaining selves without one whit of guilt. No more "good will toward men---or women!", no more mandatory visits to the in-laws, no more speaking to the neighbors just to be nice.

And, we can forget those New Year's resolutions that we never intended keeping when we made them! It's been three days; that's long enough to chuck 'em and get back to reveling in all our bad habits!

Ah, life! Ain't it great! I feel so good to be free of the "Christmas spirit" once again and back to my opinionated, flawed self!