To preserve and to alter the patterns of home.

At my house, we put up the holiday decorations on the weekend following Thanksgiving, to extend the joy and goodwill that begins with the gathering of family to feast. We take them down on January 6 — the twelfth day of Christmas, Epiphany, Three Kings’ Day. Aligning family traditions with more widely held observances can help cement them into a larger context, so these dates are something I try to hang on to, even when conditions make it difficult.

This year, though, as we edged into January, I started to feel a tiny sense of dread. I wasn’t ready to let go of the holiday feeling. These weeks of warmth and cheer after months of feeling cramped by the sameness had given my spirits a boost. Did we have to give it up already? As the main keeper of rituals, traditions, and patterns of our home, I was worried about the message I might be sending if I abandoned a rule on which I typically held the line. Would I inspire a rebellion when the time came for future observations?

I tried a casual approach. “What do you think about leaving the tree up?” I mentioned to the family at dinner — “Since we aren’t going back to work or anything, what if we just hang on to the feeling of Christmas a little longer? Maybe even until the end of the month?”

No one thought this was nearly the big deal I’d feared. “Sure, whatever,” my wife shrugged.

So the tree stayed. It all stayed: the stockings, the garland, the evergreen scented candles. Mom’s Santas remained on the shelf. I felt a little shy about it. I even mentioned to my neighbor that we were doing it on purpose, so she wouldn’t worry about us. And I pointed out any other house I noticed that still had their house lights on, their yard snowmen inflated — “Hey, they’re doing it, too!”

As January ended and we eased into February, I still felt cheered. Every morning, I flicked on the tree lights and looked out the window, imagining how they looked from outside. I decided that I deserved this small comfort, until it could be replaced by the vital renewal of early spring, the warming days, the reappearing of the crocus.

On Valentine’s Day as we drove around the city, I began to count the windows with Christmas trees lighted inside. There were so many! Was it possible that we’d collectively decided to stretch out the season, to send a silent message of hope and goodwill to one another in these long, cold months?

In that moment, I realized that when a pattern is wrenched out of place, it may offer an opportunity in its very undoing. We’d coped by changing our pattern, my neighbors and I, and the adjustment reminded me of a deeper pattern — of community, of shared struggle, of finding cheer in the dark months of winter, separately but together. I felt closer to my fellow humans in that moment than I had in a long while.

I thought, then, of the other struggles of the past year, and how many have been rooted in the fear of disrupted rituals and traditions, of resisting change and what it might mean. I cherish the patterns of home because they can draw me closer to my family and community, giving us things to look forward to and memories to look back upon. I feel more deeply rooted in the history of this place, and the people who made it. I feel more invested.

But we can’t stay invested in a history that doesn’t tell the truth, or defend patterns that aren’t flexible enough to accommodate reality. Our patterns require attention. The value of a pattern is not only in its repetition, but in its continued relevance and meaning.

I don’t yet understand what is entailed by that realization. I hope I haven’t misled you. This has been just another opportunity to notice an essential struggle that seems to emerge at more intersections of my life: contentment, wholeness, satisfaction versus improvement, growth, striving. Let’s keep thinking about what that could mean.

For now, the tree is still up at my house. Once January 6 passed, I didn’t have a Plan B, so I don’t yet know what will cue its removal. The past few weeks have been the coldest of the winter. I’m watching for the crocus.