Christmas reflux

When I was little, in the week after Christmas, my dad and I would exclaim over the Christmas trees that had already been abandoned in our alleyway, waiting for the garbage trucks. Now, my parents weren't like the couple in the beautiful brownstone two houses down who left their (gorgeous) tree up in their big bay window until early February, but the Haverkamp tree was up into the second week of January, usually.

Adam and I put our tree up in early December. I loved it. I put little rainbow lights on it, a few gold balls, and the half dozen ornaments we have so far. But today it's December 27, and I'm sick of the tree. The needles on the floor. That it blocks the window. That there are still wrapped presents under it for folks we haven't see yet. But Adam has convinced me to leave the tree up until we get back from Iowa on Tuesday.

I have become the people my dad and I scorned.

Maybe it's because this is my second Christmas as a parish priest? Christmas is a little more intense when you're responsible for producing a liturgical experience to mark its significance. But even if I never went to church, the secular world produces an intense Christmas cloud of color, music, and stuff stuff stuff.

I'm also tired of the colors red and green. So, I really appreciate the liturgical colors for Christmas: white and gold is clean and simple, but rich without giving me aesthetic indigestion.

I'm ready for some emptiness. White. Clean surfaces. Foods without copious amounts of butter.

After church tomorrow we're driving to Iowa to have a few days of Christmas with Adam's family. There will probably be red-and-green, decorations, a tree, ham and/or turkey, foods containing butter, and wrapped gifts in the neighborhood. It will be a great time, but my hunger for emptiness may need to wait a little longer.

Well, I may as well go eat another raspberry Frango.