It’s almost as depressing as what I do on New Year’s Day: look in the mirror.

Ha. Nope, that’s depressing, but it’s not the most depressing thing I do on New Year’s Day. What I do on New Year’s Day is help my wife and Emma take down our Christmas tree.

There is always something sort of sad about taking down a Christmas tree on New Year’s Day. First of all, taking down the tree represents the end of another holiday season. And before anyone fires off a nasty letter at me for using the expression “holiday season,” please understand that I’m referring to both Christmas and New Year’s. Sure, I could say “the Christmas and New Year’s season,” but that seems sort of dumb.

But taking down the tree represents more than that. It represents an end to another year. It represents the passage of time, and it represents the absence of significant days off from work until sometime in late May.

For Emma, taking down the tree represents something far worse. For Emma, taking down the Christmas tree represents the end of her holiday (I did it again) break from school. This year, Emma’s holiday break from school was a few days longer than normal. She actually had two full weeks off from school, which was a good thing on the first day of vacation but is not such a good thing on New Year’s Day, when Emma realizes that her back-to-school day is looming.

And, finally, taking down the Christmas tree on New Year’s Day is depressing because the whole process is a big pain in the *%#@. When you take down a tree, you have to take off all the little ornaments you so carefully put on the tree weeks ago. And, you can’t just take off the little ornaments and toss them onto the floor (I learned that the hard way). No, when you take off the little Christmas tree ornaments, you have to put them in specific boxes, and you have to wrap them in specific ways.

Once you have all the little ornaments off the tree, you have to take the strands of lights off. And, you can’t just yank one end of the lights and pull it until the strands fly out of the tree (again, I learned that the hard way).

Once you have the lights off the tree, you must check carefully to make sure you haven’t left any little ornaments in the tree. After you find the roughly 483 ornaments you left in the tree, it’s time to take the tree down and haul it outside. Surprisingly, this isn’t too hard to do, mainly because you haven’t watered the tree in two weeks. Therefore, when you take the tree down and drag it outside, all the needles fall off. By the time you get the tree outside, you are carrying a large toothpick, and your wife is screaming at you because there are roughly 1,287,593 tree needles scattered all over the living-room floor. That fact will come back to haunt you in August when, walking barefoot through your living room, you manage to break your big toe on one of the 456,895 tree needles still hiding in the room.

But August is eight months away, and there is still plenty of football to watch. So, on Thursday, we took down our Christmas tree. It was depressing, but at least I’ve still got some football to watch for a while. I take comfort in that.

I also still have my Hawaiian shirts.