Leftovers

New Year's Day was a week ago.  Christmas day, two weeks ago. The holiday is officially and undeniably over.

Yet I drive by houses and businesses with wreaths still hanging around, sad reminders that the party is over.  I even spot some lit Christmas trees still shining brightly, yet falsely now, in windows.  Some reindeer still linger in yards as if they don't realize Santa is back at the North Pole. Red and green M&M's still in the candy dishes, egg nog beyond its expiration date, gingerbread man cookies.....

Most resolutions have already been broken. A week this brutally cold made it too difficult to keep that promise to spend more time at the gym. And who can give up smoking and other bad habits when we so need the comfort of the familiar?

January is just the wrong time to change our lives completely. It's dark. It's cold.  Spring is so far away.  We need comfort.  We need to feel better.  So we hang on to little pieces of the holidays....that ridiculously hopeful  few weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's.  As the hours of sunlight slowly increase each day, our need to hang on to the Christmas leftovers will decrease. 

Or maybe we're just major procrastinators and will remove the Christmas decorations entirely only when we need to make room for the Easter.