Time to Un-Deck the Halls

I am feeling much better today, almost back to normal, so I am going to attempt to pack up the Christmas decorations this afternoon. Usually we do this on New Year's Day because of a tradition my clever Mom had made for my sister and I when we were little. On New Year's Day, we'd have to start un-decorating at the bottom of the tree and work our way up. At the top of the tree, she'd place a small wrapped gift for each of us, so once we'd reached the gifts (i.e., once we'd taken all the ornaments off the tree) we could open them. We were none the wiser to her bribery, and actually looked forward to taking down the decorations to get to the last presents of the season. This year, we heard that you should keep your decorations up until at least the sixth of January, because that's supposedly when the three wise men arrived to see Baby Jesus, or something like that. I am not quite sure whether or not this is true (here's a link to an interesting article on Snopes.com regarding the wise men), but since I hate letting go of Christmastime and packing away all the pretty decorations, I've decided to jump on this bandwagon, as it buys me a few more days with my tree. Unfortunately, we didn't get presents to put at the top of the tree, so I'm still not feeling completely motivated to complete this task...all I'm saying is, had there been a pretty blue box from Tiffany sitting at the top of the tree, that tree would have been packed away at the crack of dawn!

The kitties are going to be so sad to see the trees leave, as they spend much of their time lounging under them, chewing on them, and playing with the ornaments. This post is a good opportunity for me to show off a cool picture that Jeff took of Sophie under the tree - it's so perfect, it could be a kitty Glamour Shots photo!