From Post-Holiday Blues to Finding Solid Ground
I never expected
Taking down Christmas decorations to hit so hard.
Last year, I stood in our living room, watching my kids methodically unstring lights from the windows. The same lights they'd begged to put up weeks earlier. My son was quiet - too quiet for him - carefully coiling each strand while his sister boxed up ornaments. The excitement of December had evaporated like morning frost, leaving behind this strange emptiness none of us wanted to name.
Being a single dad means you get good at reading the silence. This wasn't their usual morning quiet. This was heavier. The kind that settles in when something good ends and you're not quite sure what comes next.
"Dad?" my daughter finally asked, holding the star from the top of our tree. "Do we have to put everything away?"
It wasn't really about the decorations. I knew that. As a family, we'd poured everything into making Christmas special - the traditions, the memories, the moments that were supposed to somehow fill the gaps in our lives. And for a while, it worked. December was a blur of cookie dough and wrapping paper, Christmas movies and bedtime stories. We were busy enough not to notice the empty chair at the table.
But January...
January strips away the distractions.
I've learned that's when most of us hit the wall. The calendar flips, the music stops, and suddenly we're faced with all the things the holidays helped us forget. The loneliness. The uncertainty. The way life feels simultaneously too full and too empty when you're trying to be both mom and dad.
Here's what nobody tells you about the post-holiday blues:
They're not really about the holidays at all. They're about expectations. About thinking if we climb high enough - stack enough presents, sing enough carols, create enough magic - we'll somehow rise above the reality of our lives.
The Bible talks about putting on the full armor of God. For years, I pictured that as something dramatic - a warrior suiting up for battle. Now I think maybe it's quieter than that. Maybe it's about finding the strength to make breakfast when you're bone-tired. To answer questions about why families look different. To keep showing up, day after day, even when the highlight reel is over.
So this year, we're doing things differently. We're not trying to manufacture magic or climb some spiritual mountain. Instead, we're learning to find God in the ordinary moments - the rushed Monday mornings, the homework struggles, the small victories that don't come with soundtracks.
My friend's son taught me something profound about this through my conversation with his father. Last week, his son pointed out that stars don't actually disappear in daylight - they're still there, we just can't see them. "Like God, right Dad?" he said. "Even when we can't see Him?"
That's the thing about faith - it's not about feeling spiritual all the time. It's about trusting that God is just as present in January as He was in December. Just as active in our mundane moments as in our mountain-top experiences.
The Armor of God…
Isn't just for special occasions. It's for Tuesday afternoons when the bills pile up. It's for Saturday mornings when you're the only parent at the soccer game. It's for those moments when being strong for your kids means letting them see that it's okay not to be okay sometimes.
So if you're standing in a quiet house right now, staring at boxes of Christmas decorations and feeling that familiar ache, know this: you're not alone. The letdown is real. The loneliness is real. But God's presence is just as real in the valleys as it was on the mountaintop.
Maybe that's what this season is really about - not climbing higher, but digging deeper. Not chasing moments of glory, but finding grace in the everyday. Not filling every moment with noise, but learning to trust the silence.
Because Sometimes…
The greatest act of faith isn't raising your hands on Sunday morning. Sometimes it's simply getting up on Monday, making lunch for your kids, and believing that God is in that too.
The decorations will come down. The silence will settle in. But God's not going anywhere. And neither are we.
