the holy family in a bag

I just finished a weeklong cold war about who was going to take down the Christmas tree (I wanted to take it down last weekend before I went back to work but husband wanted it up another week to "enjoy" it) It had become a fire hazard and was so dry that if you sneezed in the living room it dropped hundreds of needles on the floor and made us jump in the air. Of course I gave in and took it down, just like I give in and go to the grocery store when we have no food or like when i give in pick up a cat at the adoption center when no one else will and clearly we need a cat. So today the tree came down, and this year I was patient enough to take the lights off before it went to the curb. I threw out the pipe cleaner candy canes that I made the year of our fire. They were hard to make (you have to twist white pipe cleaners around red pipe cleaners and then bend the top into a hook) but I let them go. I threw out a broken reindeer marionette ornament that had only 3 legs left so that when you pulled the little string, his bottom legs moved up and down and his one top leg moved up and down but it looked like a Hitler salute and totally creeped me out. I threw out a gold and glittery santa sleigh that had fake presents hot glued into it. But when the time came to put the red and green box into the closet I was stuck again with a lack of space. Too many books, too many shoes that I don't wear, and a ridiculous inventory of holiday items...a turkey basket, five heart shaped valentine boxes, candles in every olfactory flavor (cinnamon apple spice, pine tree, key lime pie, and mashed potatoes with gravy). I still had to put the nativity set away and wanted to make sure that I had a careful place for it. The manger has been in my husband's family since he was a boy so it has sentimental value to us. Most of the clay figurines have been broken and re-glued and some have even been replaced. I could fit the cows, the sheep, the goats and the shepards into the newspaper stuffed shoe box but, Jesus, Mary and Joseph will have to spend the next 365 days in a brown paper bag wedged between the easter grass and a tibetan prayer wheel that I got from a student. The most important symbol for this season and they look like yesterday's lunch! This just reinforces my need to get rid of crap! I resisted buying a box of three glass pitchers today at the food co-op because I don't need three glass pitchers. I wanted one glass pitcher to replace the plastic toxic "have a glass of cancer causing BPA" pitcher that I already have. Buying clutter at the food co-op doesn't seem like buying clutter. It seems like buying hope or promise. It seems like buying a future for those children who live in the rain forest and make bamboo cutting boards-thier lives are so much better than the Chinese children who sew soccer balls. They are smiling on the package. There is a description of how the money that I spend to buy the bamboo cutting board or the Alpaca wool water bottle cover will help these children in thier rain forest towns. I am almost guilty of genocide if I don't buy these items! Man this is not morally easy..I should have tried to quit drinking or joined weight watchers-the rules are simpler there.