We finished undressing the Christmas tree on Friday. Today, Monday, a kind friend helped us take it apart and bag it. Yes, I know. It’s March 10th as I write this. I hear this echo in my head, “You’re just getting your Christmas tree down? It’s Lent already!”

I was annoyed when I heard on January 6th that “today is ‘official’ tree-taking-down day.” Who decided this?

OK, OK, I remember Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas from my childhood. It is the church’s end of the Christmas season, a nice tradition. My mother and I always tried to get our tree down and out by then. But now it’s the OFFICIAL day? Fuggedaboudit. Somebody out there has decided to spread guilt among the masses? I’m not buying it.

I had my tree up before Christmas – just not decorated. Then, my old buddy Covid, decided to pay me a holiday visit. Again. And the tree just stood there, patiently waiting, surrounded by boxes. Finally, my first house guest, my stepdaughter, arrived for Christmas and helped me get to the finish line.

I like my over-decorated, overly-sentimental Christmas tree. But with the last-minute finish and the family arriving almost immediately after, I didn’t have a chance to indulge in some much-needed quiet tree time.

I love to sit with the tree, memory on speed-dial, reflecting on childhood Christmases, young-married Christmases, and our young children’s Christmas mornings. Remembrance of Christmases past didn’t stop with Ebenezer Scrooge. Since the holiday, I’ve spent time in the living room, just enjoying it, drowning in the warmth of all those past Decembers.

And now I’m supposed to feel guilty? Nope. Guilt is a waste of time at my age. I told Dear Richard I would probably have the tree down by Valentine’s Day.

But as mid-February approached, I had a lot going on. “Honey, remember when I said I’d have the tree down by Valentine’s Day? Would you mind a lot if St. Patrick’s became the goal instead of St. Val?” He just shrugged his shoulders. No problem.

Now that the big green bag is stored in the garage and all the furniture back in place, I got to thinking about why I’m often a last-minute person. I couldn’t come up with a really good reason – except I grew up that way.

Many readers know that my mom raised me alone while working two jobs. In order to accommodate her work schedule, some things had to slide. All except the laundry. She washed all our clothes and bedding every Saturday. Sheets, towels and underwear were folded and put away every Saturday night. But, since everything else had to be ironed, the mountain in the ironing cart just grew taller. When Mom found an hour or two on her day off, she sprinkled and ironed what we needed and the rest was attacked piecemeal.

I remember being buttoned into a dress down my back and standing at the end of the ironing board as Mom ironed the pleats into the skirt.

“Stand on your tiptoes and turn slowly,” she barked. We were running late again for a family gathering, a school function or … whatever. Almost everything.

She hated to be kept waiting at the doctor’s office because it was the one appointment she respected. That and her lunch-hour hairdresser. Everywhere else, we were forever the last to arrive. She always apologized and somehow had the right words and big smile to pull it off. I was embarrassed.

I managed to make it to college classes on time, mostly because a freshman professor put the fear of God in us about being on time. He locked the classroom door precisely 8 o’clock. He didn’t unlock it until the end of class.

When I went to work for American Airlines, I HAD to be on time. I made a resolution to always make that happen and was never late. Not once in a dozen years.

These days, I get to most places on time. Just. I did learn though, that if you are in the military, or rehearse in the performing arts – and you are on-time – you are late. Maybe that’s why I was never a Lieutenant or a trombone player.

I manage to get this column in on deadline each week. And I even survived the Christmas tree kerfuffle. I was early, actually. St. Paddy’s Day isn’t until Monday.

Marcy O’Brien writes from Warren.