Item: 1 framed illustration

This is a picture of the AA Milne characters (Eeyore, Christopher Robin, and friends) standing in a snowy street and singing Christmas carols.  It's not the Disney versions of these characters, but the ones done by Shepard, which are similar but not the same.  It's a subtle, sketch-like picture, not blatantly Christmassy unless you look into the scene for a minute.

I'm not really ready for Christmas to be over.  Why should I be?  There's a display of cards and pictures in the shape of a tree on the wall, which reminds me of the wealth of friends and family who surround me.  I like having them there; I'm not in a hurry to clear this out.  My tree is getting drier, but it still retains the smell of the forest somewhere in Oregon where it came from.  My neighbors' bushes are blinking with colored lights, and indoors, the soft light of candles flickering and the tender songs about love and peace still seem beautiful to me.  Why would I want any of these things to end?

But of course Christmastime will end, as it must.  There are now just over 2 days left in the year and there are plenty of other things I could start thinking about.  I remember one year after I moved to California, the Times printed this "Christmas detox program," which gave you 12 steps to complete to purge your spirit of all the holiday debris.  I don't remember what they all were, but I do remember the first 2.  The first was to go stand on the beach somewhere and let the salt water clear out your soul; the second was to go to some plain and quiet cathedral or place of worship and be alone there.  I understand this too, the desire to shed all the clutter and go back to a more bare form of life.  As Ecclesiastes might say, there is a time to decorate and a time to put decorations away.