Zen and the Art of Packing Ornaments

I love un-decorating for Christmas. I love decorating, too, putting up each sparkly ornament and ornate stocking holder. For a while, my house looks like it was taken over by the glitter-and-gold fairy, and it's a welcome spot of brightness in the cold, dark days. But just as good, in my opinion, is taking them all down. All my regular things suddenly look simple and elegant. My living room seems huge without a six foot tree in it. There's a sense that everything is back in its place, quiet and unassuming. And that's winter for me, too: not just the sparkle of the holidays, but the waiting and quiet and beautiful dark of the rest of the months. A poet calls winter a time of "pregnant negativities"--the spare architecture of the trees, showing us the house across the street that we almost never see in the summer time; the cold ground, where we just know the bulbs are gathering strength for their big showy blossoms in the spring. So I invite you, in the weeks and months to come, to look at the spaces where the decorations are not, where the leaves are not, where the sun is not. And to find in those places, too, a kind of beauty, a quiet waiting for what comes next.