Please consider keeping your Christmas lights up for the sake of my mental health

Look, I really need this, OK.

Oh, boy, today really was a Monday, wasn’t it? Tough time getting back in the regular swing of things after the holidays, that’s for sure. I just wish there was something we could do to make this transition period a little bit easier. For the life of me, I just can’t think of anything at all. Careful on that ladder, there. Do you need a hand with those lights?

Sure is a nice set-up you got here. Really pretty. Must have worked hard on it. It’s a shame you can’t leave it up a little while longer.

Hey now. What if… Oh, never mind. But maybe. Ok, hear me out for a second. I never thought of this before. Ever. Until right now in this moment. Probably because of how beautiful your house is specifically. Who makes the rules about how long Christmas lights have to stay up anyways? Arbitrary, if you ask me. You put a lot of time and effort in to make your house merry and bright for the holidays. Just because the calendar turned over now you gotta go back to work taking it all down? Sounds like a whole load of humbug to me. Why don’t you keep them up for a few more weeks?

Am I crazy or is that a pretty great idea?

I see you took a few strings down already. I can help you hang those back up. I don’t mind at all. I’ll even help you get rid of all these Santa Clauses and Reindeers and Snowmen and stuff too. You wouldn’t want people to think you were some kind of Christmas freak. I’m not asking you to leave Santa Claus forever, that would be absurd. But the lights? Lights are nice any time of year. They’re not even all that specific to Christmas.

It still gets dark early. It’s dark by the time I’m finishing up at work. My last few moments at my desk are spent staring out the window watching the light fade away from my world. The world, I mean. As soon as I’m released from the prison of my office it feels like bedtime. I’m a grown man I haven’t had bedtime in decades. I can go to be when I damn well please, which is as soon as I get home from work at 6:00 PM because it’s so dark outside. It wouldn’t be so dark if you left up these lights.

But this isn’t about me. This is about how pretty your lights are. Don’t you just love looking at them? I for sure do. Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a hand putting them back up? You seem to keep taking them down even after all these great points I’m making.

I get it, it’s your house. But isn’t putting lights on the outside for everybody to see kind of making it our house too? It’s a gesture of community and taking them down before the community is ready for them to come down is kind of abandoning your people when they need you the most. Weren’t you just making a promise to honor Christmas in your heart and try to keep it all the year? It’s January 6th, my dude, how is January 6th “all the year.”

Oh, that wasn’t you? That was Ebenezer Scrooge? Well…you’re Ebenezer Scrooge, but in the beginning of the story, not the end. If you ask me you need a good visit from a handful of ghosts?

Oh, look, these cars are keeping Christmas in their hearts. They know to keep their lights on to bring joy into the world all through the year. Doesn’t matter to me if the lights are red and blue instead of red and green. They’re even stopping to say hello.

OK, who called the cops?