The War on Christmas is over. 2013 won, as the New Year always does. I came home yesterday from an early-out, late-in day, to see that Eleanor had stripped the tree bare, boxed up most of the ornaments, and left a note asking me only to bring up more boxes so she could finish the job later in the week.

Ha.

By the time she got out of her own late-in, late-out workday, our artificial tree was back in its coffin, and all of the ornament boxes were back in their cellar homes (save a few oddities we missed- you always miss some).  Clearly, her note was a challenge to Gagnon, world champeen tree demoisheir, to finish the job.

There are various schools of thought about when this can/should be done.  Growing up on my side of the family, the tree was always decorated late in the pre-Christmas rush, but it generally stayed up until my father's  birthday, which happened to be January 6th, aka Epiphany. Later in life, I realized this was part of his emphasizing his story over the Christmas story, and for most of Emily's life, we've made it a point to have the house de-Nativitied in time for her January 3rd birthday, which was yesterday.

Funny thing, though. I visited their apartment early yesterday afternoon, and there was their tree, still lit and decorated as brightly as ever. Turns out she really wanted to extend the observance into her birthday recognition, even after we'd tried so hard to distinguish one from the other.

It seemed right, given that it was her choice, not my overbearing father's. And meanwhile, our house is cleaner and more spacious. I will still recognize Epiphany on Sunday, but the trappings of it will be in church, not in our living room.