Last night I took the Christmas decorations down from the attic. I pulled out the stockings and the candles and set to work decorating the mantle above the fireplace. There were four mini-pumpkins sitting there. Those ought to go out into the yard waste bin, I thought. I picked them up. They were all still in surprisingly good condition. Hmm. Well, it's cold outside. I'll take them out later. I put them down on the kitchen table.
I took down the fall wreath from the door and packed it away, putting up a fresh evergreen one in its place. I added a garland of stars to the mantle. I looked back at the little pumpkins, two orange ones and two white ones lined up in a row.
They're so cute. I idly organized them into a circle and wandered out of the room.
Decorating's done. Except for taking those little pumpkins out to the trash. I crouched down on the floor and looked at them there, perched on the end of the table.
I showed up in the office doorway where my husband was working on the computer. I had the four little pumpkins cradled in the crook of my arm, in a little row. He looked up.
"Pumpkins."
"I took them off the mantle."
"Put them in the yard waste bin."
I looked down at them, and back up at my husband with wrinkled eyebrows. "I feel bad for them."
"Why?"
"Because there's nothing wrong with them."
"Yes there is. They're not christmasy."
"That's not their fault!"
"I see."
Pause.
I looked at them hopefully. "I could make them little hats with jingle bells on the ends."
"You could."
I looked back down at them and I bit my lip. I don't have time to make little hats with jingle bells on the end. I know this. My eyes started to tear.
"We could eat them," Shawn offered.
"No! They're...um...old. Right. Too old for eating. Definitely."
"Then throw them away, honey."
I walked into the other room and paced around it with my pumpkins, keeping clear of the back door that leads to the yard waste bin. Eventually, after much deliberation, I put them in a little row on a stone bench on my front porch, where they'll be protected from the wind and rain. I'll let them sit there until they mulch or dry out.
Maternal instinct is a bitch.