How long do the lights stay up?

THIS IS A blue time of year, with January settling in and the deep cold still to come. We had a great Christmas season at the store and time for little else, and we hope 2017 is a good one.

We didn't put up a tree at the house this year because we have a new kitten who thinks fake fir and decorations are toys. I actually tried putting up the tree in my man cave, but Josie got into it and tore the bottom apart, so the tree is ingloriously laying in pieces in another room.

Christmas + lights = cat toys.

I did string lights around the store windows and we put a tree up with lots of cool guitar ornaments. It was quite lovely when we turned off the lights to head home for the night. Last Saturday, the final day of the year, Steve Rees and I took everything down and packed it away for another year. This time the tree is in the first-floor storage area instead of on the third floor, where it talked to ghosts and collected spiders. One of them crawled on my arm when I put it up and the ghosts were not happy when hearing they wouldn't have the tree to talk to this year.

I like the Christmas lights. Washington Park is beautiful and The District even put lights up around the top of our historic Fifth and Maine building. But Christmas is over. How long until the lights come down?

Christmas technically lasts until the Epiphany, which is Friday. So leave 'em up for another few days, get over the sadness of a season's end, and get ready for Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine's Day and all the other events coming up.

Just make sure your Christmas stuff doesn't collect spiders until you put them up again.