Holidays Are Over

 Now the holidays are officially over.  Schedules will return to the normal hum-drum cycle of working 5 days and not working 2 days.  I have one Xmas cookie left plus 2 pieces of fudge.  After those are gone it's time to return to the normal diet which (I hope) will have fewer sweets.  I plan to take down the tree this weekend.  I enjoy a real tree until it's time to take it down.  I enjoy putting up the tree 5 times more than taking it down.  I do enjoy the light it shines in my living room.  With my electric timer the tree lights up by itself at 6:10 a.m.  This lets me know that I can disregard the alarm at 6 a.m. and relax until the tree lights come on. When the tree lights come on, it's time to pull the covers off and face the world.  I had a good holiday season.  I enjoyed having extra days off.  Sometimes I was alone and I enjoyed that.  Sometimes I had company and I enjoyed that too.  Once I was in a crowded room with 27 others and that was fun too.  I noticed that my back yard is full of life.  On Christmas Day we had a wildlife show during our lunch.  While we enjoyed some homemade pasta at the kitchen table we watched a flock of 20 robins plus 3 cedar waxwings pretending to be robins eat crab apples off the trees.  A pair of pileated woodpeckers ate suet along with the hairy and downy woodpeckers.  A red bellied woodpecker ate from the peanut feeder.  Juncos ate from the leftover canary food I threw on the deck.  Blue jays and robins drank from the bird bath.  A pair of cardinals looked amazingly red in the white snow.  Chickadees ate their seeds one at a time and the white breasted nuthatches creeped headfirst down the tree trunks.  Does all this natural birdy splendor happen 7 days a week?  I sure miss a lot when I go to work..