The most wonderful time of the year has come and gone far too quickly, and its departure has left a hole in my life. I’m not ready to give up the promise of coming joy, the anticipation of all my family gathering together, or the display of all the lights that go hand in hand with the Christmas season. As a college student, the holidays are cut unbearably short due to the fact that final exams are one week before Christmas. One freaking week. By the time I get home, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve missed so much of Christmas, and after it ends, all I want is for it to last just a little bit longer.

If you’re anything like me, putting up Christmas decorations makes you happy in a way unlike any other. Almost everyone holds special memories of decorating with their families. Digging a ladder out of the garage and helping my dad with the lights outside is a ritual we do together each and every year. However, what goes up must come down, and with the end of the Christmas season, the end of the decorations inevitably arrives. We become so accustomed to seeing a tree in our living rooms and stockings above our fire places, that when they all come down, we get this feeling that something is missing. Years ago, my family tried to replace the missing tree with a fake potted plant, and while we filled an empty space in our home, the feelings of the end of the holidays couldn’t be shaken. Taking down Christmas decorations is like ripping away happiness piece by shiny piece, and is by far one of the most depressing times of the year.

Even though the department stores completely disregard Thanksgiving and reveal Christmas decorations the day after Halloween, special deals and opportunities to save don’t roll around for a couple more weeks. When they do arrive, however, every mall in America becomes a shopper's paradise. With ads screaming words like DEAL or SAVE, they grab our attention. With the amount of stuff we buy during the Christmas season, we most likely save several hundred dollars (and spend several hundred more). But when Christmas ends, the world of retail settles down and prices spike back to where they were before. We all wish things could stay cheap, but with the passing season, we must all accept the fact that it will be another whole year before we’re treated like this again.

Just because Christmas is over doesn’t mean winter is. While we get spoiled here in Florida with weather warmer than summer in Canada, most of the country still has to deal with snow and all the troubles that go with it. Many people will be slipping on road ice and shoveling fresh powdered snow for another two months. Northerners aren’t the only ones who are going to suffer either. Here in Gainesville, driving to early morning class on a scooter will still be miserable. The truth is, summer can’t get here soon enough, because we no longer have the impending spirit of Christmas to keep us going through all this frigid weather. I’m excited to wear flip-flops and tank tops again. And while spring break is on the way, right now it is nothing more than a tiny light at the end of a long dark tunnel. The promise of Christmas kept me going through the early months of winter, but there is nothing now except a dark, cold winter. Why cant there be another Christmas in like a month?

Christmas is over and that thought is extremely depressing. As quickly as it comes, the joy in the air disintegrates into nothingness. We must suffer the sight of watching our precious decorations come tumbling down, sales ending and prices on everything spiking, and the misery of winter continuing to linger for several more months. The days and weeks immediately following Christmas are the worst of the year. That is, they are until the super bowl and football ends; those suck too.