Christmas is officially over

By Tracy Farr
Editor, The Daily Spittoon

For most of us, Christmas was over the day after presents were opened and the wrapping paper stuffed in trash bags.  For some of us, Christmas was over when the lawn decorations were picked up and put away until next year.  But for one Stinky Creek family, Christmas was finally over this past Saturday when they finally got around to taking down their tree.

Fifty-four days after Christmas Morning, the Stafford family finally took the ornaments off their tree, unplugged the lights, and put everything away in the attic.  And it wasn't a moment too soon.

"It was really getting embarrassing to have our Christmas Tree still up," said 45-year-old Monica Stafford.  She and her husband, John, have three children.  "It was getting to where our kids were refusing to have their friends over.  To be honest, I wasn't inviting my own friends over.  How could I explain why our tree was still up -- in February?"

"I'd come home every day from work and ask why the tree hadn't been taken day, and Monica would tell me it was MY job, since I was the one who put it up," John Stafford said.  "All this time I had been waiting for HER to take it down and all the while she had been waiting for ME to take it down.  I guess we were just waiting to see who could last the longest with it standing in our living room corner, and I was the one to finally cave in."

Rainy weather slowly made its way through Crappie County Saturday, and with nothing else better to do, Mr. Stafford finally took down the tree.

"It's funny how when you first put the Christmas Tree up it looks so happy and festive," Stafford said.  "Let me tell you, after 54 days that tree was starting to look like an old man with slumped shoulders -- an old man just begging to lay down and take a nap after a hard day of cutting wood.  So, I put that tree to sleep for another year."