… when Christmas is over.

People, I tried.

(If you haven’t already gathered, I wrote this a week ago but was too lazy to post it.)

I tried super hard to be all Christmassy and I think I might have even kinda sorta pulled it off as far as my kids are concerned.

However, I’m not gonna lie (like some of those crazy bitches at the gym I know … Lindsay) and say that I’m sad to see it go. Because I’m not sad. Not even a little.

The happiest day of the holidays is 48 hours after Christmas and I am free to take the tree down.

It’s like a giant weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I can’t rock the holidays but I am great at regular life.

Let me just say that my kids are waaay better at removing Christmas ornaments than putting them on the tree. I was in such a good mood that I even put on some Christmas music as a perverse sort of soundtrack.

Whereas the time leading up to the holiday was fraught with anxiety, the post-holiday period was pretty much everything the holidays should be. Go figure.

All the anticipation I should have felt for Santa, midnight mass, Christmas morning, etc., was sublimated to that period after the holidays when most people feel blue about the passing of the most wonderful time of the year and reset their Christmas countdown apps on their smartphones.

I took the boys sledding, we hung out with friends, and had great conversations with my boys over steaming bowls of vegetarian pho.

Perhaps my only vestige of Vietnam

Because, you see, that’s what I like. Not eggnog, not ham, not Christmas cookies … pho. And lobster.

And cheesecake.

We went up to Jason and Emily’s to sled (rather the boys sledded while I tried to capture a fail video that would go viral), ate lobster on popovers, and made the kind of conversation that only happens when I hang out with them.

Tabby was nice enough to let Chicky come over for the day while she skied with her husband.

I forgot that she was going to drop him off before they headed for the mountains. It was around 6:30 and Blue started barking, then we heard a strange, distinctly non-Blue sound, and then I heard his little feet scamper up the stairs and leap right into bed and under the covers with me.

I love him.

Blue isn’t too thrilled about him.

He acted out by photobombing the shit out of what was going to be a delightful calendar photo.

I have BIG NEWS but will save it for another blog. Soon.