The new clothes and gadgets have all been put away (at least they’ve been moved up to the children’s rooms), wrapping paper and boxes are crammed in the recycling bin, and the sugar cookies and coconut bread and chocolates and the leftovers from Christmas Day have been eaten. After a whirlwind month of decorating and shopping and wrapping and caroling, of attending concerts, parties, plays, and performances, Christmas is over, just like that—come and gone in the blink of an eye. And while normally I feel a bit relieved to leave Christmas and its attendant work behind and I look forward to the New Year and taking down the Christmas decorations, this year I’m still lingering over Christmas, loathe to move on just yet.

In that spirit, this morning I’m making a couple of lists: What I Learned This Christmas, Things I will Do the Same Next Christmas, Things I Will Do Next Christmas That I Didn’t Do This Christmas, and Best and Worst of Christmas 2010. Here goes:

What I Learned This Christmas:

My daughter’s theater program needs a good voice teacher, as no one could sing on key at the annual Christmas show. Not good, especially when “When Mama Meets Jesus Tonight” is being sung.

The world did not fall apart when I didn’t send out Christmas cards this year.

The world did not fall apart when I didn’t reciprocate every single neighbor gift we received (and no matter how many extra gifts I have on hand, I always seem to run out—I learned that, too).

Speaking of which, I will never deliver neighbor gifts on Christmas Eve—really, people, neighbor gift-giving should be over by the 23rd. I’m done then, and I don’t want to have to scramble to find a gift for you on Christmas Eve when I’m trying to get the prime rib in the oven.

Even though I’ve seen it a bazillion times, I cry every time I watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Every. Single. Time.

Things I Will Do the Same Next Christmas:

Not send out Christmas cards or try to reciprocate every neighbor gift.

Serve panna cottas for dessert on Christmas Eve.

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, curled up on the couch with my family, my children wearing their new Christmas pajamas.

Feel gratitude for my family, my life, as I sit around the breakfast table on Christmas morning eating French toast strata and our traditional Christmas morning casserole.

Things I Will Do Next Christmas that I Didn’t Do This Christmas:

Buy my children less presents (I say this every year).

Try to focus on the birth of the Savior more (also say this every year).

Not get so frenzied and stressed the week before Christmas that I have a meltdown as I’m preparing Christmas Eve dinner (see parentheses, above).

Not start The Sound of Music at 10:00 on Christmas night and thus avoid my youngest daughter crying uncontrollably while going to bed because she was “more tired than she had ever been in her whole entire life.”

Try to contain my excitement while waiting for that precious semiannual phone call from my soon-to-be-a-missionary son.

Best and Worst of Christmas 2010:

(First, the worst): Knowing that my son won’t be here next Christmas.

(And now, the best): Sitting around our candlelit dinner table on Christmas Eve—my favorite night of the whole year (after I recover from the meltdown)—eating prime rib with my husband and children and my sister and her family, our house snug and festive and softly lit, suffused with joy and anticipation.

The whole of Christmas Day, except for when we went to bed after midnight and my youngest daughter was crying because she was more tired than she had ever been in her whole entire life.

Making ebelskivers in the kitchen with my oldest daughter on Christmas night, chatting and laughing together as we beat egg whites and folded them into the batter.

Watching the joy on my younger son’s face as he unwrapped my soon-to-be-a-missionary son’s gift to him: his prized, coveted collection of The Lord of the Rings, Extended Version DVDs and Batman DVDs.

The look on my youngest daughter’s face when she opened my soon-to-be-a-missionary son’s gift to her: his band sweatshirt, his Peruvian-style woolen hat, and a notebook he kept during his Book of Mormon class at BYU, full of his notes and personal reflections on various scriptural passages. “We only covered the first half of the Book of Mormon in my class,” my son said. “Now it’s up to you to finish the notebook by writing your thoughts down about the second half.”

My daughter gazed up at her older brother with love and adoration, then burst into tears; I watched as he caught her up and hugged her tight, my own chest tight to bursting.

That was, hands down, the best Christmas moment of all.

And now I want to hear from you. What were your best/worst moments of this Christmas? What did you learn this year? What will you do the same/differently next year?

Related posts:

1. The Case for Shopping
2. ‘Tis the season to give each other goodies (but I really wish we wouldn’t)
3. Posts of Christmas Past