I hope everyone is simply having a wonderful Christmas time (please note the present tense). After all, Christmas begins on December 25 and carries on until Epiphany on January 6.

So if you've already taken down the icicle lights from the gutter and the plastic tree is in pieces and stowed in the basement, you're doing it wrong. Don't worry; I'm doing it wrong too. Last year I decided to leave the outdoor lights up until after Epiphany, gleefully squandering those pretty 50-degree days that always seem to pop up after Christmas in Kansas City with smug happiness that I was keeping them up until Christmas was OVER, not just as it was beginning.

Enter January with all her cold wind and ice...

Yeah.

My wife got fed up with it, dug out the ladder and took them down about a week before St. Patrick's Day. And told me about it until a week after Easter. Sheesh.

So don't narc me out to the Liturgical Christmas Season Police, but our peppermint scented candles are tucked away for their long summer's nap until it begins to look a lot like Christmas 2009. Hell hath no fury like a wife up on the rooftop (click click click!). She doesn't care that Christmas doesn't end until the Three Kings bring Baby Jesus that combo Christmas-Birthday present that all the people that were born in December complain about.

It is not a matter of discussion.

You know, it would be a lot easier to bring your true love all that stuff for the 12 days after Christmas. And with all these after-Christmas sales like they've been, it's probably a big money saver. You're probably the only guy buying pear trees and hiring pipers this time of the year, so you're in for a deal. Did you know that someone actually calculates the cost of all that stuff and tracks it every year? PNC Bank calls it the Christmas Price Index and it's one measure of inflation: http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/. Save your nickels, Scrooge, if you're buying your True Love all that Bric-a-Brac this year, you'll need to show up to the Aviary, Jeweler and Labor Ready outlets with $21,080.10 in your pocket.

Us poor boys can't come up with that kind of change, pa rum pa pum pum. And since my wife doesn't care for incense and since we've already sent all our gold to that guy on television who is going to mail us a check for its value, we're just down to the myrrh. Don't hold your breath, True Love. I'm still paying Citibank back for the Lords-a-Leaping I got you in 2003.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: it's still Christmas Season. Here on St. Sylvester Day, New Year's Eve and the Vigil of the Solemnity of Mary, while we're popping the corks on our $4 bottles of sparkling wine (it's a recession, who's got money for Champagne?) and Aulding our Lang Syne in the living room, take a moment and wish Baby Jesus a happy belated birthday. He's earned it. And I'm keeping my Santa Hat on for another week.

A Child is Born. The Three Kings from Orient are on their way. I gotta look my best, right?