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PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS and prepare for landing.



With Christmas there always comes  After Christmas...as in After-Christmas sales and  After-Christmas gift returns and  After-Christmas letdown (yeah, that too) but there's no specified time frame.

For me,  After-Christmas arrived this morning. The concentrated time of family togetherness that began on Christmas eve ended late last night when the last of my children and their spouses gathered up their bags and boxes and assorted and sundry articles of clothing and small stacks of Christmas gifts, and piles of trash (yeah, not that) and left for their various dwelling places.

And so this morning there is brilliant sunshine streaming quietly in the windows and I have time to appreciate the fleeting artwork it produces on the walls.



The dishwasher sits half-full, with no prospect of being put into operation any time soon. All the stores of food have been reduced to scraps, even the leftovers of the leftovers having been consumed. The rooms have a disheveled look to them. Of course, there are sheets and towels to wash and a backlog of other quotidian duties awaiting, as well.

It's time for me to open the one After-Christmas gift I always give myself:  A hefty chunk* of time to ponder the good memories and sink gradually back to life as usual. I call it my Re-entry Zone. In the Re-entry Zone, it's perfectly acceptable to have a cup of tea, read a book, or work a crossword puzzle and banish all thoughts of laundry from my mind. Instead of rushing off to the grocery store to re-stock the larder, I chat on the phone. I simply luxuriate in free time.

You may wonder how much of this free time I partake of while in the zone. Well, thoughts of Big Bad Backlog (lurking in the corner) tend to encroach on my pleasurable lolling and shorten it a bit. But it's like this...as with many treats, one comes to a point where you know you've had enough. Did you eat any sweets during your Christmas celebrating? Any Christmas candy or cookies, rich Christmas cake, cinnamon buns, cheesecake, pie, creamy dessert bars, doughnuts, eclairs, tortes, any manner of things dipped in chocolate....um, I'm starting to feel queasy! You knew, didn't you, Dear Reader, when you had had enough. Of course that's not to say you didn't continue to indulge. But beyond a certain point, groaning increased and pleasurable consumption proportionately decreased! It's even possible that visions of a good crisp stalk of celery or a crunchy carrot stick floated through your head!

Just so, my Re-entry Zone of free time lasts right up to the point where some good, actual, down and dirty, scrub-a-dub-dub, elbow-grease accomplishment seems appealing!

And come to think of it...touchdown had better occur real soon. Holiday preparations are looming!

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*(yeah, chocolate, too)