Oh, sweet Christmas pig. I hardly knew ‘ye.

Terrence, the tinsel pig.

Every year, I wonder, as the piles of dead Christmas tree needles in my living room begin to reach heavenward, “What fool is going to clean up all this crap?” Every year, that fool is me (and hubby).

And every year, there’s something new to fit in the bins. A splurge fifty-percent-off buy at Target. Something too shiny, or too cute, to avoid putting in the shopping cart with my toilet paper, toothpaste, and the romance novel I chucked in when hubs wasn’t looking. (That’s okay; there’s a Star Wars action figure in that cart that isn’t for the kids. And Lord knows I didn’t put it there.)

Anyway, this year, some idiot (again, me), bought a large tinsel Christmas pig wearing a scarf. Why? Why, indeed.

And this is why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I prefer to make my mistakes, and have my corresponding epiphanies, one at a time. Helps me stretch out the year. Rather than have all my positivity and self-reflection occur in one fell January swoop, I can sprinkle it in bits, here and there like fairy dust.

Which brings me back to the pig. Poor Terrence (that’s his name). He will be shoved in the closet today, where he will possibly get dented and definitely get dirty, only to get dragged out again next year. At which point, I will point to him and say “No more after-Christmas purchases this year!” and he will stand there on his ridiculously short legs in shame. But in the end, this hastily made statement will make a liar out of me, as all my emphatic pronouncements do. Terrence will be victorious. Because two days after next Christmas, there will be a felt woodland creature calling out to me. Possibly a fox wearing a cape. Or a mouse with a walking stick. Or a bird wearing a hat. It will crawl into my cart, and find it’s way into the overstuffed Christmas bins with its brethren. I suppose I can live with that.

Happy holiday clean up everyone! And may your 2016 resolutions stand a better chance of success than any I might have made.