The Exhausted Dad: Resistance to holiday takedowns
The painted pumpkins on the porch made it until 2025.
My family struggles with transitions. We all spent time painting those pumpkins for Halloween last year, and they look terrific! As a bonus, the cold weather keeps them from (noticeably) rotting. We can’t smell them, anyway.
Halloween isn’t the only thing that lingers around our house. Birthday decorations like balloons and streamers often stay up for weeks. Last year, my youngest made a cutout display of Martin Luther King Jr. that we put up under the calendar in the kitchen. Because nobody ever thought to take it down, the artwork has made it all the way to MLK Jr. Day 2025.
Christmas lasts forever in our house too. We typically put our (plastic) tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. We watch Christmas movies on holiday break at least into January (mostly because there’s like 800 of them and nobody wants to think about going back to school/work during boring cold January without at least a little “holiday” spark).
All four kids LOVE to decorate the Christmas tree. None of them want anything to do with putting away the Christmas tree. My youngest son has been using the under-the-tree space as storage for his new toys. Taking the tree down would just make that space look messy.
It’s always me taking down the tree. We own too many ornaments. They don’t fit all that well in the storage box, and all the kids are worried about their homemade trinkets getting damaged. And yet their worry is never enough for anyone to offer to help me put them away.
I’ve noticed a few people in the neighborhood who remain committed to their Christmas decorations, including a few brightly illuminated trees still beaming in the windows. Good for them! I want to be one of them! As long as there’s a risk of snow, I think the Christmas tree should stay!
Except I feel the pressure from all the normies in the neighborhood who have promptly transitioned to normal winter life. People will see the tree from my front window and think, “Those people are lazy,” or “Those people don’t understand how to use a calendar.”
Fortunately, I’m just enough of a rebel that I can usually talk myself into doing what I want. I’ve kept up a Christmas tree deep into January on multiple occasions. When we had babies in the house, the tree made it a couple of times into February. And, back in college 20-plus years ago, in my first apartment, I kept my $16 Target Christmas tree up until we moved out of the place in June. Because youth, I suppose.
This year, I took the tree down Jan. 11. It honestly felt early, and the kids seemed disappointed. Actually, my youngest daughter made at least a dozen comments about how the living room was “too dark” with the tree gone, and I almost sent her lamp shopping just so she’d leave me alone about it.
Ultimately, I took the tree down “early” because I told myself it isn’t special if it stays up too long. That’s probably nonsense, but I suppose that’s what normies think about it anyway.
My son’s toys are still in the same place, just in an open pile near the window in the living room. But hey, the room is “too dark” to really see them anyway.
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 7-13. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.
The Exhausted Dad
