The morning began with packing up Christmas. The roll out starts Thanksgiving weekend and usually takes a few weeks before every decoration is hung, the tree bought and decorated and so on. But, packing it all up took just a few hours. The tree is at the curb awaiting the town collection, the five red and green storage boxes are back in the basement and the icicle lights came off the front of the house.The trappings of Christmas are gone and our minds have turned to other matters. As I packed things up, though, I thought about the season, how nice and relaxed it was, and do hope to be able to carry that spirit with me a while longer.And that will be challenge since this week we hit the ground running. First, it was my first five day work week since mid-November so it felt long. Second, atop the normal work and home stuff, there were obligations. Monday was the monthly Democratic Town Committee meeting, Tuesday was the Alumni Career Dinner (see previous entries for thoughts), Thursday was a planning meeting for Binghamton University