In my country, many people leave their Christmas decorations up throughout January. I've even seen cases where they leave them up until the first few days of February, haha. This year, I wanted to leave them up until the end of January, but today I decided to take everything down because, as I mentioned earlier, it's been a pretty strange few days and it's killed my Christmas spirit. I also feel a little sad because my plans for this month have changed completely and I've had to improvise several things.
My mother arrived home on December 12 and planned to stay with us until January 25. However, due to everything that happened, she was quite distressed. She was worried about not being able to leave, that there were too many of us in one house, and that the food situation was becoming complicated, as prices had gone up... I understand her concern, and she is absolutely right, but I really didn't want her to leave so soon.
On Sunday, she told me about her concerns and immediately planned to leave on Monday. Yesterday, I woke up feeling quite sad because I knew she would be leaving, and today was even worse. I had already gotten used to waking up and seeing her here in my living room playing Spider Solitaire on the computer, haha. Maybe that had a big influence on my decision to take down all the decorations today. I don't feel like it's Christmas anymore, especially after all the chaos, haha.
This Christmas passed quickly and was strange. Since November, I usually have a huge Christmas spirit that fills me with hope and makes me appreciate this time of year like no other, but this past year was so bad that I wasn't even very excited about Christmas. Obviously, I did everything I had to do to make my son feel that Christmas spirit that I love to pass on to him, but inside, I felt that something was missing. I experienced extreme stress in the last months of 2025, and although I have plans and want to remain optimistic, there are days when I can't fully visualize all the dreams I want to fulfill, and I get stuck sabotaging myself.
I felt quite nostalgic taking down my little tree and all my decorations. I can't help feeling this way because I really love enjoying Christmas.
Before taking it down, I turned it on one last time to see it again, because I loved my tree this year haha. See you in a few months, little tree!
Now the corner of my house looks so empty, and I feel like something is missing there. It bothers me quite a bit.