Another Christmas has come and gone, leaving behind a mess of crumpled wrapping paper, empty boxes, and those tiny strips of green plastic from artificial Christmas trees. (Those fake evergreen needles are a pain, man.) Here on TMTF, I have post-Christmas problems of my own.

As much as my typewriter monkeys deserved coal for Christmas, they received fire extinguishers instead. My monkeys are notorious pyromaniacs, and fire extinguishers are usually less flammable than coal. However, I didn’t foresee the potential dangers of giving my monkeys cans of pressurized chemicals. Ah, well. Live and learn.

(After reading TMTF’s Christmas poem last month, my dad drew the picture above: a screenshot from one of Santa Claus’s many hidden cams. Saint Nick apparently puts the NSA to shame with his surveillance systems. “He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake,” indeed.)

Yes, Christmas is done. A new year has begun, and I’m thankful for another nine or ten months before I even have to start thinking about the holidays. The older I get, the busier I become during the Christmas season. I say this not as a complaint, but as a statement of fact. The holidays are a busy time of year, and they end so abruptly.

Comic from MOLEBASHED by Wes Molebash.

After months of holiday music, planning, shopping, gift wrapping, decorating, baked goods, baked bads (I’m looking at you, fruitcake), church programs, television specials, and peppermint-flavored everything—Christmas simply ends.

Granted, New Year’s celebrations do provide some sort of epilogue to the holiday season. It’s as though we all share an unspoken understanding: “Well, Christmas is over. We might as well just end the year and be done with it.”

At last, the holidays are over… for another week, at least. The stores will soon start running ads and selling stuff for St. Valentine’s Day. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”