So I finally took the tree down on the twelfth day of Christmas and it turned into an all-nighter. At about 9:00 pm when I started, I remember telling Marti no sweat: it was going to take about two hours. She was way under the weather at the time, well into a virus that knocked her for a loop, and medicine that made her dizzy. I knew she was feeling bad when she went to bed leaving me with the takedown project, something she would normally be fully invested in. She was so out of it, she didn’t even hear the chain saw I took to the tree in the living room.

Yes, you read that right, although it’s an electric chain saw, but it still makes a lot of noise. In spite of our little house, the living room has an open beam ceiling that reaches 14 feet at its peak, so we like to take full advantage of that at Christmastime with a large tree that takes two people to haul in, and only me to haul out… in pieces.

At 4:30 a.m., Marti appeared in the doorway like a zombie, saw me amidst all the decorations still not in their boxes and turned right around and went back to bed. I was going to be gone the next day so I was very motivated to get everything done, knowing how badly she felt. But I’m sure she was fully convinced at that point that she was going to wake up to pretty much everything in a mess.

At 6:30, I climbed into bed with everything boxed and ready to go into the attic and the house vacuumed and straight. She’s still talking about it – the transformation that happened between 4:30 and 6:30.

With the exception of feeling pretty much out of it the next day, I actually enjoyed this marathon. I like packing things away for later use, and take a deal of pride in knowing they will be found next year in the same state as I put them away. It can be an emotional time as well amidst ornaments like “Baby’s First Christmas” (30 years ago), Christmas 1984, my favorite ornament (a page of music from a caroler’s book), and Marti’s favorite (a shopping bag full of presents). I slow down a little with these, staring off into a bank of memories. I don’t mind the time.

Which is probably the single most important reason for the holidays… to stop long enough to notice who we are, who we love, what we have, and what we will hold onto forever. In my book, that’s worth staying up for.