Let me be clear on one point now: you will never hear me say that I cannot stand my decorations a second past the Epiphany. If I rush to put them away by the end of January’s first full week is only down to a pressing need for order and the necessity to reclaim the hole that is my house where space is more than at a premium. The decorations themselves make me happy and every time I enter the lounge after I’ve taken the tree down, and it’s all tidy and dark, I feel sad, almost as if someone had died. Then I start clinging on to stuff such as The Polar Express or A Christmas Carol or the last bit of the Christmas pudding or the Christmas sticker album I bought myself in November. Seems like a lifetime ago. No, two.
Anyway, I am blabbing. The whole point is, I don’t want to plunge my living quarters into darkness for the next eleven months. Who says that fairy lights are only good for navity sets and the tree? Or for shops and teenagers’ bedrooms? I will remove the pinecone trees that my dad made, and which give this soft, flattering glow to everything, but I am on an anti-dreary mission and I think that Valentine’s (and my wedding anniversary, which tags to it nicely) is an excuse as good as any other.
