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Was anyone else really feeling it yesterday? The After-Christmas Blues?

An old friend and I had a running joke that “post-Christmas depression” is a real thing, especially for those of us who really get into the Holiday spirit. You know, the ones who start playing Christmas music in the beginning of November and feel the urge to deck the halls as soon as the first snow falls.

We know the Christmas season is fleeting and we want to hang onto it as long as we can.

All the build-up. The elaborate meals and meticulously decorated cookies. The warmth that comes from choosing just the right gifts for loved ones and immersing ourselves in all we have to be grateful for.

And then, Christmas day comes and goes in what seems like a flash.

All the colorful gifts under the tree are opened and replaced by a carpet of dried out, fallen pine needles.

Roars of laughter and conversation fade to an eerie silence.

Holiday dinner leftovers are packaged up and put away and the aroma of cinnamon and warm apple pie no longer lingers in the air.

if we let ourselves forget what it’s all about.

And one of the great things about little kids is they have a way of not letting us forget; of refocusing our perspective.

You see, the morning after Christmas we came down the stairs and she insisted I turn on ALL the Christmas lights.

She couldn’t stop talking about all the fun she had with her cousins, and how “Santa Claus is coming to town”.

And when I put her to bed last night, the only book she wanted to read was “The Night Before Christmas.”

Because children know what we, as grown-ups, often lose site of —

And most importantly, there is no expiration date for gratitude.