I'm a sentimentalist.

Isn't there a television show about that?  The Mentalist?  Oh wait, no, I think it's called Hoarders.

I have a confession to make:  I just took my baby three-foot Christmas tree down yesterday.  I didn't have the chance [aka energy and volition] to put any ornaments up this year, but that didn't keep me from smiling while thinking about all the ornaments that I could have put on there.  It just about brings a tear to my eye to think about how there's an ornament from every year of my life, each one meaning something.  I think that's my second-favorite thing about Christmas trees.

I think my first-favorite thing (don't tell my kids I'm qualifying the word "favorite" -- that's a no-no in my class) about Christmas trees is just the feeling that they bring with them.  For at least three or so weeks after Christmas, I'd turn on my lights and touch a match to my cinnamon spice candles and listen to jazz, soaking up the happy that oozed out of my seasonal accoutrement.  It was a great way to relax and enjoy the Christmas spirit without the Christmas stress -- presents, plans, pre-break class discipline, etc. -- and I just wasn't ready to do away with it yet.  I won't lie to you, it didn't help that it was cold outside, and I would have had to brave the elements out on my covered porch for ten seconds to put away decorations.  Gross.

So I left the tree up from the middle of December all the way through the second week of February.  Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

I'm not just sentimental about Christmas.  I do stuff like this for just about everything.  I save calendars from past years because I just might want to know when I went to the mall with Alexandra summer of 2007.  I have the dried bouquet of roses from my sixteenth birthday (Though, considering they are the only roses I've ever gotten other than daddy-daughter dinner dances, it's understandable.  And I might even have corsages left over from said dances.) and the yellow spider mum corsage from the band's senior night (It still makes me want to cry when I think about what a jerk I was that night.  I love that corsage.  Mom, I'm so sorry.).  I have trophies from the two pageants I was in when I was six and seven, I have pin-on paper footballs from high school spirit weeks, and I have a smattering of UNC sports magazines that are at least five years old.  I have practically every single card or note that everyone's written me in the past two years taped up on my laundry doors and my front door, and I would have more if I didn't get annoyed by running into them all the time.  Pretty sure I even have the velvet bunny Valentine's Day card my aunt and uncle got me when I was like three.  I love that card.

I don't even know where all this stuff goes.  It helps that some of it is still at my parents' house, up on shelves and stuff, but lots of it is here with me in my tiny one-bedroom apartment.  Along with the boxes from online purchases (you never know when you might need to pack something), gift bags from friends and family and students (but sparkly, wine bottle-sized gift bags are so useful!), decorations friends made for my nineteenth birthday (they made them themselves, and it was so nice), and college brochures (teaching tools, duh).  Not to mention bills, warranty paperwork and bank statements from when I was in high school.  This stuff is valuable, you know.

What's sad is I'm only sentimental about half of it.  Another quarter is there because I'm too lazy to go through and throw things away, and the last quarter is because I'm just crazy enough to think it might come in handy.  Bring on the broken champagne glasses.

You know, I bet I could maybe file the edges and make it into a cool vase or candy dish or something.  Besides, my mom gave it to me when I first moved here....