It’s over, all but the washing up, the taking down and the putting away.

I sit in my favorite place, the corner of the love seat in the living room and stare at the Christmas tree that is shedding its needles and eyeing the enormous plastic garbage bag full of wrapping paper. It’s Dec. 26. I am exhausted, in a post-Christmas stupor made up of planning and shopping and wrapping and cleaning and cooking and giving and getting hugs and smiling when all I wanted to do is take a short nap.

I am taking this day to recover.

But there is tomorrow and the next one, days marching on, each one a bit longer than the other, reminding us of the enduring circle of life just as the year end celebrations that we humans have designed remind us of our elemental need for each other, not just as economic partners but as definers of self as well as reminders that we are, as imperfect as we are, dependent on each other in ways physical and metaphysical.

At the nadir of the year Christmas reminds us of the return of the light. Those of us who are Christians see the light both astronomically and in the birth of the “light of the world.” Those who are Jewish, celebrate Hanukkah as the festival of lights.

It is also a time of looking ahead to those days that follow one after the other, seeking more balance in the world and peace for its peoples.

I will eventually clean up the fallen needles … there have been some years when that didn’t happen until May … and get rid of the wrappings, clean up the kitchen and move on to what is next, but I can’t help but think that I have to expand my acknowledgment of the meaning of this time when we can transform the message of Christmas into action and I offer again this poem to capture a moment of meaning for all of us:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is.

Here are my hopes and dreams, my holy shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean

And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations.

A song of peace for their land and for mine.

And as I leave you with my wishes for a Happy New Year … My Christmas tree is artificial.