The Kings have gone now, heading home by a different way.

So it is, then, that the tree has to come down, stripped of his baubles and tinselling to sit out at the curbside looking like a green hedgehog in the snow and ice. The trucks will come along and take him away to where ever they take discarded Christmas trees, their duty well done.

I hate to take down the tree. There were years when I imperilled the family itself as the tree dried out to dusty kindling but I wanted to keep it there for just a little longer, another day, a few more hours. But dull responsibility being what it is, down comes the tree finally.

There are a million more vaunted meanings and associations to the holiday but the tree’s place is unique to our spirit and I feel such warm emotions both helping to put it up and taking away, later, the uncountable doodads that sparkle on it. They sparkle from gaudy paint or brisk bits of metal but, much more, they dazzle from the memories they invite.

There are little plaster of Paris decorations made by the children decades ago; there are the gifts from beloved friends and relatives, too many gone themselves now; there are mishapen little things that are, to us, more glorious than the treasures in Ali Baba’s cave. Here is a small hand-lettered sign for “peace” drawn back several of our unending wars ago; here is small figure made out of corks which could very well be a snowman, although it is hard to tell now what our young son meant when he fashioned it back long ago; here, is his brother’s work, a plaster tree with Cheerios for decorations and, there, an almost fossilized cookie with my name on it, prepared by the wife of the publisher of a newspaper in my ancient times; there are little drums, made by Mrs. Santa back in a time when we couldn’t afford decorations at all and she made them herself: today, we can buy out the factory but these are so much more valuable than anything newer or more grand.

Above all, literally and figuratively, is the little angel for the top. It is no trumpeting archangel at all nor of the lofty battalion assigned otherwise to sing songs around the Great Throne. This is a slight little fairy with foil for wings and yellow twine for tresses. Over the years she has faded some and her eyes have had to be enhanced with pens and markers. But she is a great beauty for all that and the setting her atop the tree is a ritual as rich with us as any in the brownstones and palaces, the noble halls and cathedrals elsewhere.

But down she comes, the last to go into the boxes. How many happy times she has presided over in these many years, the joy and good cheer, the warmth of family and the rattle and clatter of children whose hearts alone encompass perfectly the Christmas message.

Yes, it is time to set out the tree. It a wistful moment every year. You’d think I’d be better at it by now. I hope I never get better at it, if getting better means losing the slightest of the memory and emotion that the tree so lovingly represents.

Well, next Christmas isn’t all that far away.