Mary Belk: Time to clean up the annual holiday mess

The New Year. For some it will rush in like a racehorse on steroids. Others won’t notice it’s here until they write a check and discover they’ve put the wrong year.

But the Yuletide festivities are over. It’s time to stop lolling around and clean up the holiday mess.

One of the minor arts in life is getting the Christmas tree out of the house without leaving a trail of dry needles imbedded in the carpet. I’m not at all superstitious. Can’t say that I believe in luck — good or bad. But when I was growing up, people said it was bad luck to leave a Christmas tree up after the first of the year, so I prod my people to get our tree down to the road on New Year’s Eve.

If you’ve ever had kids, you know that all children love to make indoor tents. They happily drag sheets and card tables into the living room and play feverishly for hours. But nothing in this world short of a cat-o’-nine-tails can make them put the stuff back.

That’s how it is with Christmas trees. First you bring the sweet smelling tree into the living room with great anticipation. Next comes the weaving of strings of red, yellow and green lights between the prickly branches. Then the most fun of all — rooting around in boxes of cheery trinkets and choosing the perfect glittering ball for each bough. The final act is placing the angel on top. At last everyone steps back and takes a good look, gasps, and vows, “It’s the prettiest tree we’ve ever had.”

Try convincing the same crew to take down those bangling baubles and put them back in the box. It isn’t an easy job. I can’t think of any work I hate more than un-trimming the Christmas tree — untangling the lights from the ornaments and the balls from the branches. And nobody has the patience for packing things away neatly at dismantling time.

It’s my chore to climb the stairs to the attic with the dislodged decorations.

When I reach the top and search for an empty space to stash the crammed cartons, I’m hit with the sad fact that I’m a hoarder of possessions. I’ve never meant to accumulate unnecessary stuff, but somehow over the years it insidiously stockpiled.

Outgrown clothes I’m saving for who knows what.

Letters, report cards and school projects. Old kitchen appliances we’ll surely need when the new ones give out.

Maps and postcards from trips to California, Wyoming, England, Paris and Spain. Matchbooks from motels: The Monteleone, Lone Pines, Moose Lodge, Tides Inn. And back behind the baby carriage is the crate of Christmas garlands we couldn’t find.

I contemplate the contents of the attic and I wonder: Is it too late to make another New Year’s resolution? Toss out the array of used-up objects? With reckless abandon say, “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

Wait a minute. Never mind. I think I made that resolution last year.

Mary Belk lives in Auburn and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News.