I began preparing for the holidays on Thanksgiving night with a 10 PM shopping trip at Tanger Outlets. I did not stop shopping until Christmas Eve, and left no toy store unturned. But like years past, my month long dedication to all that is Christmas went by in a flash and Santa’s helpers forgot to clean up the mess! Since Christmas, my house has been a whirlwind of wrapping paper scraps, card board, those obnoxious twist ties they use to bolt toys into boxes and an array of fresh puzzle pieces that will most likely never return to their proper box. I was in the midst of cleaning this up this morning when I realized that I hadn’t even considered what my resolution for 2012 might be. I am really pretty happy with myself and can’t really imagine that anything about me needs tweaking (I kid), but surely even the most perfect specimen can find room for improvement, so I sat to consider things further. I could resolve to read more, or write more, exercise more or do my hair more often, but none of those really seemed appealing. I read plenty, I write enough, I exercise when I want to and my hair looks simply superb in a ponytail — why mess with a good thing?
Today, I wandered my house collecting our holiday décor to pack away. I unhung the stockings and ornaments and tucked our toy train away to chug beneath our tree next year. Most of this stuff I bought myself or I received as gifts—snowmen and miniature reindeer, but amongst these things are some of my most precious treasures—the ornament Aidan made me last year at his library class, the Rudolph he made me in his first year of pre-school, the Christmas ornaments the boys made with grandma this year. These things can’t be bought; these are the memories that our family made together, and a piece of each of my boys’ childhoods. My New Year’s resolution is to get a trunk for each of my boys and start packing away these little tokens that they have made me throughout the years. I want to take more pictures so that I always have something to look back on to remember when my family was just starting out, and my boys were still just babies. I encourage you to do the same - time will surely fly by too fast and it will be wonderful to always have a box of memories tucked away for reminiscing. Happy New Year!