Phew...

The ornaments are packed away in boxes and cans, the tree has made the trek back to the woods whence it came, the candy has been eaten, (the cookies were gone a week before Christmas!), the last box of presents arrived yesterday and tiny packages appeared in shoes this morning. The Christmas records have played their last (although knowing C it will be St. Patrick's Day before he returns them to their dusty home in the basement). The village has been ransacked for the last time. We'll read Christmas Trolls, Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve and The Night Before Christmas one last time tonight before putting all of the Christmas books in the closet and replacing them with more generic winter books. For the next few weeks I'll run across tringlers and trappings; Christmas paraphernalia that I failed to notice on the first dozen runs through the house.

We delivered the last present this morning: This calendar, which I unwisely decided to make for E and Z's daycare when I saw this one at a friend's house. (She didn't help by saying, "You could make one.") It started out kind of fun...the planning part (although I didn't do nearly as much planning as I should have). And then after a series of comical setbacks--running out of thread in the middle of "Korner" and finding the replacement thread was not quite the same color; forgetting the "H" in "weather"--I came to the point of making the days and numbers and months, which I printed onto plain white fabric ironed onto freezer paper with our old printer, because I read on the internets (everything on the web must be true, right?) that this would work, and it did, sort of, except that the pages repeatedly jammed in the printer (which C wisely pointed out barely feeds regular paper) and then a drop of water landed on one and the ink smeared, letting me know way too late that I should have used the pre-treated sheets of fabric for printers (but pre-treated with what?).

As I sewed and turned and stuffed and handsewed dozens of the little thingies, I cursed myself over and over for not just buying the premade calendar in the first place. But by this point it was like one of those Army Corps of Engineer projects where when they get the Environmental Impact Statement saying it will be way too damaging, they've already put so much time and energy and money into it it's too late to turn back and they go forward anyway. (Fortunately I put very little money into this project--I had almost all of the needed materials on hand). When I came to the point of making seasons and weather, I cursed again (what does summer look like anyway)? And then when it was done, looking a little crooked and kind of slanty (maybe I should have used a ruler? and learned how to do freehand embroidery first??) I would have been more than a little disappointed if it weren't for the immense sense of relief that it was done (although more than a week after Christmas). C was admiring enough to say it would be wasted on daycare and we should keep it for ourselves (missing the obvious fact that the name of the daycare is emblazoned across the top), and when we dropped it off this morning they were appropriately rapturous about the whole thing, so either I'm too hard on myself or they're just really nice.

And now, in the post-holiday lull, instead of feeling full and content, I'm feeling edgy and anxious...full of ideas of what do NEXT Christmas, what gifts, what food to make, how to make the 12 days more of celebration time to ward off feelings of letdown, will Goodwill still have the vintage holiday table linens I didn't learn about till New Years? Not exactly being mindful (new year's resolution # 8).