Dec
8
GAH. It’s 3 weeks or something until Christmas and I am not feeling festive. Not even remotely.
There are flashes of festive. But mostly, it’s a lot of NOT. I am hoping that a little snow will make it all seem Christmas and ho ho ho around here. Because it does not FEEL like Christmas is coming.
This year, we said, “We are going to have all our shopping done by December 1. We are going to have a nice, festive, relaxing December, and we are going to be NOT stressed for the holidays.” We had plans. We had LISTS.
And yet? Here it is, December 8, and we’re not even close to ready.
Well, that’s not entirely true. We have all the gifts we had planned to buy for Stinkerbelle. Truth be told, we finished her shopping in September or something. We have lights on the house (but that is all — no money or energy for garlands and wreaths and arbors and whatnot this year) and we have gotten our tree up in record time. I even did one batch of baking already.
We tried to get That Baby’s Christmas pictures done on the weekend. But she? Was having NONE OF IT. Oh no. It’s like she has a psychic power whereby we say, “Oh, we are going to do X when she’s gone to bed or X when she wakes up from her nap”. So then she struggles to go to bed or stay in bed or wakes up cranky from a 10 millisecond nap and foils our plans. So that’s still to be done, unfortunately.
Around the house, there is still so much to do as well. Our attic-slash-rec room looks like a bomb full of computers and office supplies has gone off. Our second floor needs work, too. Christmas decorations are randomly stacked about, waiting to be given a spot to sit and be festive for the holiday season. I have a ton of baking to do, which means That Baby has a ton of “OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO ME PICK ME UP PICK ME UP PICK ME UP”-ing to do. I haven’t gotten Christmas cards ready, or finished shopping for BDH or family yet.
I hate the holidays for the stress it brings, I really do.
We are trying to make it a non-stressful, festive time, because it is not just us anymore. There’s a little person who, not this year probably, and maybe not even next year so much, but soon, will LOVE everything about Christmas. So we want it to be a fun time of year for her.
We tried to prepare and get things done. And then life and lack of money and other Things To Do got in the way. I guess that happens to a lot of us.
But this morning was Stinkerbelle’s last swimming lesson for this session, and her social calendar is slowing down a bit, which means we now have some free time in our weeks. BDH has his company Christmas party tonight, AND a soccer game, so that gives me a night to do stuff this evening. And maybe, with some Christmas music and the tree for diversion (we’ve tried the traditional cartoons and movies and That Baby is just NOT interested) maybe I can get a bit of baking done this week during the daytimes.
I am sure as the holiday gets closer, I will start to get excited. At least, I hope so. In the meantime, I am sure some lovely shortbread (which, for the first time in 20 years, I don’t have to share with Opus!!) and a cup of coffee and Bailey’s will at least make me feel a little more jolly.
