The Never-ending Season

   Christmas 2011 is over. All the wife’s decorations, crammed into more than a score of 32-gallon plastic storage boxes full of every possible item associated with the holiday, are back on their shelves in the garage. Bigger items such as the artificial green plastic tree and decorations too large for the boxes reside on their own shelves awaiting the first week of December 2012 when they’ll be deployed again.
   But is it really over? Not until the last vestige of the season is put away and the final remnant cleaned up. Therein lies the reason for the never-ending season.
   Lurking somewhere in our living room carpet are rogue needles from the tree. Yes, we’ve vacuumed scrupulously with both a standup machine and a shop vac. Still they lurk, invisible to the naked eye unless you happen upon them in just the right light, at just the right angle. There it is! Pick it up now before the light changes or you move a millimeter in one direction or the other. That has to be the last one. Hah! They scoff at our feeble attempts to get them all.
   Every year we vacuum what seems to be thousands of needles after we get everything set up and again when everything comes down. After all these years of shedding, our tree should be just a metal rod with bare, twisted wires hanging from it, more Festivus pole than Christmas tree.  Yet, it still looks full. It must somehow regrow a new crop of needles as it spends the summer in its cocoon-like storage bag.
   We have a lot of grandchildren and we vacuum a lot. Crumbs of every sort, torn candy wrappers, and other reminders of their visits are sucked up on a regular basis. Still, we find at least one needle with every cleaning. Invariably, one will survive the entire year although every square inch of the living room has been vacuumed more than once.
   Our pastor suggests to us each Yuletide that we should leave something from Christmas on display to remind us of the warmth and good cheer the season provides. Consider it done, Father. I have opted for my leg lamp, ala “A Christmas Story.” But even if we put that away there will always be a green needle popping up as the seasons change to call to mind the good times with family and friends–and that we should be more diligent in our cleaning.