Christmas is a holiday celebrated by more than just the average churchgoer. From music to decorations, the desire to participate in the festive spirit inspired by Christmas is palpable. For some of us, it’s a deeply religious time; for others, it still signifies a time of great joy and festive affection even without the more religious ideology. But as I gazed around post-New Years Day, admiring all the decorations still up I began to wonder: if Christmas isn’t fully connected to the Christian holiday for everyone then how do you know when to take down all those decorations? The tentative rule is that once the three kings/wise men visit the baby Jesus on the festival of Epiphany, then Christmas is officially over and the decorations come down. But over the years I’ve seen houses take them down immediately after Christmas and I’ve seen houses wait almost until Easter. One former neighbor of mine still had their roof lights up all through summer – I think they just didn’t want to bring them down. That doesn’t even begin to factor in when all the municipalities decide the holiday décor has lost its appeal and they need to make way for the next banners and festive decorations. My point is that even though there may be a logic to the deconstruction, it seems functionally disconnected from a spiritual practice. Or is it? All of us, spiritual and secular alike, are bound by the same realities of the universe: creation and mortality, birth and death. Even if you believe in the assumptions of Elijah and Mary, no one has the brazen arrogance to think they will escape the cycle of life like they did. Although it may not be something we always talk about, want to talk about, or want to even consider, the realities of our human existence always exist beneath the surface of our conscious mind. And yet, even when the conscious mind evades such realities, we can find nudges even in the most mundane tasks, reminders that creation and destruction, birth and death, are all around us. I’ve read a number of poems and articles that talk about Spring and Winter as metaphoric times of mortal contemplation but as I take down my own decorations I began to see birth and death play out in the most cyclical and normative way. I began to notice that even the act of decorating and un-decorating is a way that we experience birth to and death to an entire visage of the season. The acts are both wondrous and mundane in what they are and what they unconsciously symbolize. Beyond their aesthetic properties, we often forget how psychological it is to control the forces of life and death in our own lives – even in such small ways as putting up lights and taking them back down again. Birth and death are things we encounter over and over again, sometimes within our control and other times without. Whether you’re spiritual but not religious, tied to a specific faith tradition, or religiously tied to secular life, we all participate in acts that figuratively play out the notions of creation and destruction in our lives. They help reinforce for us how limited our human experiences are on earth. As we finish taking down all the decorations this season, I wonder if we might begin to recognize the enumerable ways we all encounter birth and loss, and if that might fill us with more empathy for each other. This article was originally published on Jan 10, 2024 in the Bennington Banner