The holiday season official ends in our house today. The dozen or so holiday decoration boxes (probably more than that) have been hauled out and it’s time to undress the house of all its cheery, colorful Christmas and Hanukkah finery.

The weeks following can be drab. The lights are out; the days are short and it’s a long winter’s wait for pitchers and catchers to report or for boating season or whatever lights your fancy in warmer, sunnier weather.

While I was putting away the decorations this year, I noted that since my son is now 18 and all these boxes may someday be his, I wanted to be sure he knows where this collection comes from. He knows the train platform, trains and the ‘Plasticville’ houses and buildings are older than me (yikes). But the tree trimmings and decorations that go up throughout the house have been collected through the years. Fortunately, I have marked boxes with the year in which I acquired some of the decorations. I am correcting some of the markings though so my son knows that some of these decorations date back to MY grandmother.

There is no way I can let go of the little handmade decorations that Adam made from the time he was able to hold a crayon in his little hand. I have several envelopes of those types of tree ornaments. I put some of them on this year’s Christmas tree. Now, there are so many ornaments and decorations, I’d have to have three or four Christmas trees to use all of the ornaments. Hopefully, I’ll remember for Christmas 2013 what stayed in its box this past Christmas.

It seems every Christmas I end up decorating most of the house and tree myself for one reason or another. It was lovely this year to have my son and husband help pull out the boxes and dismantle a lot of the decorations. Somehow it was less depressing.

In a matter of weeks, the crack of the bat, the green, green grass of spring training fields and another season of hope for the Phillies will make the winter melt into the warmer, sunnier season.