After the New Year, I get an itch to take down the decorations and get everything “put back.” Part practical, part compulsive. Use that vacation time productively! Don’t have pine needles and sorting out light strings and boxing up hanging over my head.

But I’m always sorry. There’s nothing sadder than the cold January week when it’s no longer the holidays. Those gorgeous trees cast to the curb, the sparkle gone, and nights still dark.

It’s nutty that I have a fear of being “that neighbor” who never takes down his decorations. Other’s lights never bother me, I’m grateful for the prolonged, slightly melancholy cheer.

I think it’s clear Christmas isn’t quite at the right time. A mere 3 or 4 weeks from Thanksgiving, once it’s over the winter seems so bleak. Why not hold it mid or late January?

Then again, perhaps we couldn’t take quite that much holiday. No matter how long it lasts, I suppose the love theme from The Poseidon Adventure has it right, there “has to be a morning after.” We sat around eating and drinking and enjoying the scenery for two weeks, and it’s done. Here we are.

Grudgingly the kids are back to school, asleep a little earlier, nudging closer to their bedtime each night, though there’s quite a while to go. We’re still 50-year-old dads, and we need some beauty sleep. Oh boy do we need some beauty sleep.

Shayla learned to sashay her head and wiggle her pointer finger and say “oh no, you’re done” over the break, like a contestant on Ru Paul’s Drag Race. (Thanks Uncle Rob.) But she’s learning the hard way it’s not as charming done defiantly at dinner as it is on vacation. None of it is.

Sorry baby, it’s back to the real world. But what a gorgeous break it was. Happy 2015 everybody, go easy on yourselves.