Boxes

I've spent the morning putting away Christmas.  The Husband is always a teensy melancholy when I do this.  He likes to leave it all up a little longer.  I just want to clean up.  He says he can't really enjoy it all before Christmas because of the stress, and likes to be able to look at it all and savor the good feelings after the success of the season.

More than once we've had a conversation about the storage room and wanting to have everything organized.  I fully support that.  He asked me again this year why all the Christmas stuff isn't all in the same kind of box, same size, easily identifiable.  Because not everything fits in those boxes.  And other boxes only fit on the tops of our shelves, requiring a bit of searching for all the Christmas things.

Kind of like our lives.  It is easy to wish for things to just go where they should, to fall in line, to fit in the designated spot.  It is frustrating when we have to deal with the oddities.  Reinforcing the knowledge that we aren't really in control of anything much except our reaction to the oddities.  Leading to the thought that we are so dependent on the mercy and love of the Almighty.  Also the thought of how grateful we are for that mercy and love.  And eventually gratitude for the oddities, those things that provide spice, interest, humor, enjoyment and variety to our earthly experience.  Those things that refuse to fit in the box.

And believe it or not, after putting away the Christmas stuff, I had a box left over.  It's sitting on the shelf, waiting for something fun to fill it.  I'll keep my eyes (and my heart) open for whatever it is.