TT: Lights out

Taking down the Christmas tree is the saddest of chores, inescapable and depressing, and so I did the hard part while Mrs. T slept. I got up, tiptoed into the living room, and carefully stripped off the lights and tinsel and ornaments. Mere hours before, they’d glittered joyously in the winter night. Now all that remained was a dried-up bundle of branches that I unceremoniously hauled across the road into the woods.
I wouldn’t have been so quick to do my yearly duty were it not for the fact that we’ll be departing Connecticut first thing tomorrow morning, not to return for some time to come. Otherwise I would gladly have left our beautiful tree unmolested, for I know no spectacle so heartening. Mrs. T and I have only had three Christmas trees in our eight years as a couple, and last year’s was our first in a long time. Hence we were determined to put up two in a row, and it filled me with joy when we plugged this one into the wall a couple of weeks ago and beheld the blaze of its old-fashioned lights.
Today it’s gone, and tomorrow we’ll be gone, too. I miss it already–but I’m looking forward to its successor, a shining symbol of the love that is the best part of my life.