Christmas has come and gone. We had a great day, though as always I greet the post-Holiday season with a mixture of relief and sadness. I'll be glad to have life settle down a bit and get back into a routine (and on top of the laundry situation-- how dare I take a vacation from clothes-washing!), although I'm always bummed when Christmas is over. I HATE the taking-down of Christmas decorations; the house looks so naked (and yet uncluttered and cleaner) once everything is back to normal. They say that the holidays is the number one time of year for people to be depressed, but for me, it's the post-holidays that get me down. And very sadly, we have another reason to feel a little bit down this year. Yesterday, December 26th, we had to put our beloved Christmas kitty, Mistletoe to sleep. I can't get over the irony that our last day with her was Christmas Day (our 7th with her). Neither Mike nor I have ever had to put an animal down -- it's obviously a hard decision to make and an unbelievably sad thing to experience. But it was very evident that she was ailing quickly. She stopped eating, could hardly walk, couldn't jump up on the bed and she didn't purr anymore. It was time to put her out of her misery. We both felt guilty for not being able to give her more attention the last couple of years, and sadly, some of the attention that she did get was toddler attention -- not always the most feline-friendly, gentle lovin'. But alas, we all loved her and will miss her. We know that she's in a much better place -- Matthew thinks that she'll be very happy in Kitty Heaven, and we quite agree.