We are pathetic.

Christmas was almost 3 months ago and we still have all of the ornaments from our tree sitting in a pile in our living room.  We took them off of the tree so we could haul the tree out but never got a chance to actually put the ornaments into their boxes and then into the attic.

I remember as  a kid that it seemed like time took so long.  It was a wait until Christmas and it seemed like we enjoyed the build-up for months in school.  We made paper chains and strung popcorn and sang carols and all sorts of Christmasy things.  Now it seems like Thanksgiving was just yesterday and here it is almost Spring!

I read somewhere about a theory as to why that happens…when you are a kid, a single day is a much higher percentage of your life than when you are an adult.  Days as an adult seem much shorter/faster when compared against all of the days that have already bee lived.

We are travelling to PA this weekend to celebrate my Grandpa’s 98th trip around the Sun.  I suppose that time must really fly for him.  He’s seen so many changes in his lifetime.  I remember his talking about the first time he saw a car and the first time he saw a plane fly overhead.  Neither were common where he lived when he was a kid.  So much has happened since then.

I was talking with my kids just the other night about things.  I got a shortwave radio and we were doing a bang-up job of tuning in several stations that were broadcasting static (I don’t know why so many stations broadcast static 😉 ).  Abigail asked me what that noise was and it occurred to me that with digital tuners and memory buttons on our radios, she had never heard static.  It started me to thinking about TV when I was a kid…we got 3 stations on good days and had to wait for the set to warm up.  Channel changes were manual (and the job of the kids) and so was turning the antenna.  Cell phones didn’t exist and neither did home computers.  I just saw in the news that Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer be printing its volumes.  These changes are no where near as drastic as those my Grandpa has seen but still, holy cow!  When I think about it, my kids do live in a much different world than I did at their age.

I guess when it comes down to it, our Christmas ornaments are just fine sitting on the armoire.  Time doesn’t have to fly.  It’s still Christmasy around our house, at least a little bit.  Maybe I’ll have to ask my Grandpa how he feels about the ornaments on display…I bet he’ll just chuckle…”Well Christmas was just yesterday!”