I have put away my Christmas tree pin and candle earrings for another year. Christmas is over. Away with red and green, and on to blue and silver, a different sparkling of colors for the New Year celebration.

I had a wonderful Christmas, with my three children home and, as my father often joked, mimicking a would-be daughter-in-law’s grandfather, “Nice party, no fights!”

In fact, we had lots of laughter and chatter and food and wine and egg nog and a bottle of Proseco to celebrate the return, after a year, of my daughter from her teaching job in Korea.

All of which is entirely too much personal  information for a poetry blog, but some of it may wind up in a poem someday. In the meantime, I offer one by Jane Kenyon, who is truly a marvelous poet. It is called “Taking Down the Tree,” which, as you can guess, is about that last act of the season, something I won’t do until after the New Year, but still, in anticipation, here is her tribute to the past, to the dark of winter, and to extravagance.

Taking Down the Tree

By Jane Kenyon

“Give me some light!” cries Hamlet’s

uncle midway through the murder

of Gonzago. “Light! Light!” cry scattering

courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,

it’s dark at four, and even the moon

shines with only half a heart.

…

The ornaments go down into the box:

the silver spaniel, My Darling

on its collar, from Mother’s childhood

in Illinois; the balsa jumping jack

my brother and I fought over,

pulling limb from limb. Mother

drew it together again with thread

while I watched, feeling depraved

at the age of ten.

…

With something more than caution

I handle them, and the lights, with their

tin star-shaped reflectors, brought along

from house to house, their pasteboard

toy suitcases increasingly flimsy.

Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.

…

By suppertime all that remains is the scent

of balsam fir. If it’s darkness

we’re having, let it be extravagant.