Tinsel no more, puddings no more...

It's a new year, it's a new day. Well, it is now the fourth day of the new decade. All is quiet. A world in white is underway, again. Unbelievably the snow is still here! This has to be the longest lasting snow in recent Scottish history! I've not been able to park in my own street now for at least two weeks. I'm parking in a small car park at the top of the hill at the moment and an old couple that obviously usually park there regard me with narrow eyed suspicion every time they pass whilst I am crunching through the snow into a vague parking space shape in the snow. They watch me as I leave the car as if accusing me of encroaching on their space. Just because I don't usually park there doesn't mean I cannot park there does it? I've considered building a big snowman in their empty car park space the next time they are out. On their return home they have to slam on the brakes as they move into their parking space, faced with a giant snowman grinning through their windscreen at them.
A lot of people dislike New Year with the whole back to normal routine but i say 'what's wrong with that?'. Christmas and New year are times when you eat too much, spend too much, drink too much and generally just have too much of most things that are bad for you. Why not get back to normal as soon as you can and be thankful for it? I'm sitting in work right now and personally grateful to be back. Maybe I'm just being cynical and/or miserable again but I'm glad to be back earning the honest wage with the smell of the ink, the whirring of the air conditioning, the rumble of the press downstairs, the banal chit chatter of fellow employees, drinking too much caffeine and skiving from work, writing on a blog (my own banal chit chat!). Don't get me wrong I had a great Christmas - one of the best in fact - but now it's time. I'll go home tonight and probably wrestle the Christmas tree back out the living room, tossing it outside, now unwanted and unloved, out into the snow. I always hate that bit as I love the whole tree buying element of Christmas and always feel sorry for the green fir after it's served it's purpose. I'll then be hanging from ceilings dismembering decorations and then packing them all away for another eleven months until the next time. The rooms looking bare and empty again without their trees, tinsel and baubles. No more Christmas parties, no more silly ties, no more friends and relations that you don't see enough of, no more presents, no more dancing at the bells, no more tv specials, no more buffets, no more family quizzes, no more advocaat, no more cakes and puddings.
It's all quite depressing really... how long till Christmas?