LF I enjoyed the piece very much.
My wife and I seem to have solved the Christmas letdown sort of by accident.
When We moved into our present house 3 years or so ago we invited our new neighbor to have Christmas dinner with us. Her husband had just passed away and she seemed quite lonely. We all had a good time. Her daughter and son in law came to live with her the next summer and at christmas they all had Christmas dinner with us. During the feast Her daughter invited us to their house for christmas dinner. It turns out that they are Ukranian and Celebrate on Jan 13th. They served 13 different courses of simply wonderful delights. So instead of post Christmas letdown we now stretch out the season to include the 2 Christmas events.

I laughed about your tree on the table because of the dogs. We placed some presents under our tree and within 1/2 hour Bud and Kaysa our 1 year old Shiz tsu brats had them all torn open and strewn about the room. they were quite proud of their efforts. . Nothing ruined but what a mess!

Ps. Kaysa and Bud put together make a Case of Bud. My wife named them after her favorite brew.

Our tree was a 9 footer so putting it on the table was not an option so I built a 1 foot high lattice work fence around the tree which everyone now refers to as the Dingo fence.