It feels like an eternity since I've visited this spot. I just discovered that it had only been Monday last time I posted. Certainly it had been a couple of weeks, my weary brain tried to tell me!
Sigh.
The busiest time of the year for church workers, this is. I have had to publish an insane amount of bulletins and newsletters and posters and such. Somewhere around Tuesday, I started to think I was not going to get it all done. I'm just talking about my little part-time job here. Christmas was not even in my thought process at that point. But....today, I wound up most of it and heaved that stress overboard.
Here are some lowlights from this week:
1) I found out my dog has a heart condition.
2) I got a filling. Yeowch.
3) Now that I pulled off the stunt of getting all that work done on time, my boss will think I am magic. Well...I am magic - just not as much as he now will believe me to be.
4) I scowled at my kids. A lot. And the most prevalent tone of voice has been the through-the-teeth one.
5) I'm getting glasses. That really belongs in the highlights, but there is not a highlights section in this post. I have always wanted glasses and I used to wear fake ones in high school. I'm not really sure why I did that. I guess I thought it was cute, though some people told me that I looked like Andrea from 90210. That stopped my fake-glasses era in its tracks. Nobody wanted to look like Andrea. She was the sensible one. This may, however, help with the scowling and irritability as I won't have to squint all day at work anymore.
6) I have not slept enough. I am back with the caffeine (Oh, coffee, I do love you so. Why must doctors insist that we stay apart?). That is the only way that I am able to stay upright at this point.
And now, we pick up the burden of the Christmas Crunch. You know the one? The one that means I could stay up 24/7 until The Day and still not get it all done? So, here are some compromises I have made:
1) Regular old present-wrapping. Now, I'm not a snob about how other people wrap their presents, just about how I wrap mine. I like paper that coordinates so all the presents look nice together. I like the paper to coordinate with my tree. Well...here are the sub-categories of this item:
a) Whatever the heck kind of wrapping paper is closest to the cash register is what will enclose my gifts
b) Instead of hand-aging those white mailing tags and using stamps to decorate each one individually, I will use the sticky ones with foil designs. They were also close to the cash register. Some of them will be written on with blue ink that totally clashes. Those are the ones my husband wrote before I caught him and told him to at least use black ink.
c) Plastic bows that come in plastic bags. I don't like these much. I really like real ribbons - grosgrain ribbon to be precise. This has nothing to do with being eco-friendly. I just like real ribbons on packages. Also, I really like to untie real ribbons on packages.
d) No-one will have dangly present decorations that are or are not handmade
See how much? And that's just in the gift-wrapping category.
2)Cookie baking will probably not be beautiful and carefully planned. No matching aprons will be involved for all of the cooks. It will be a haphazard, sweaty, wild and stressful occasion. But it should be fun.
a) Also, I will not necessarily be piping icing and trying to make things look like they came from a bakery. Probably Emma will decorate most of the cookies. She is, um, very thorough.
3) I am not going to clean my house from top to bottom. It's not going to happen. We mostly cleaned a while back. My bedroom? Yeah - it never got finished. We will wipe up the obvious dirt and pay the kids 10 cents for every hairball they pick up out of the corners. That ought to do it.
4) Mostly, I am also not going to stay up until 3 AM Christmas morning trying to set up the breakfast table and clean and wrap gifts. But I say that every year. And every year, I'm up until 3 AM anyway, because I thought I had things way more under control than they actually were.
I know I sound like a psycho. These are all things that only a psycho would do. The problem is, they are all things that I love to do. I love, love, love to wrap my gifts carefully and put handmade touches on each one. It's how I tell people how much I love them - that each one of them are special to me and they deserve to have an extra 10 minutes spent on them. I love to make tons of cookies that look like they would cost $5 apiece at a bakery. It's not a compulsion to outdo anyone or to measure up to something. I'm not worried about shattering my domestic goddess reputation (smirk). It's just an expression of what's in my heart.
But it won't all happen this year. It just won't. I have a sneaking suspicion that people know how I feel about them anyway. I tell them all the time.
DAILY BLISS: Printing the last holiday church bulletin, picking out my first pair of glasses and snuggling on the sofa with Emma
8 comments:
Congratulations on not seeing well. I am sorry for your compromises I can tell it means a lot to you, but there will be less stressful Christmases in the future and real ribbon will be that much more pleasing. I'll bet You'll still have more fun than anyone you know.
OK, 90210... you are dating us, girl! But YOU as Andrea??? NO WAY. I thought of you more as the one Shannon Dougherty played, the dark haired rebellious girl. Not slutty like the blond one, but just enough fire to be completely and utterly fabulous.
Fancy cookie or no fancy cookie, I'm hoping to see you this week.
Mary, you can always bet on me having more fun than anyone else - even if it's only because the jokes in my head are only funny to me.
And B? You are dead-on. I always identified more with Brenda, even if I was not allowed to watch that show:) And I would be 100% excited to see you this week! With or without cookies. But we have tattoos, and who needs more than that?
I totally share your glasses fetish. Right now I have 3 pairs, and have a never ending wish list for the frames I want next. This might be pricey in a few years when I have 17 different frames that all need new lenses. Um, and I cannot picture you as Andrea at all. I always thought of you as more of a compassionate and kindler version of Elaine Benes (one of my favorite t.v. characters).
I totally remember when wearing faux glasses was in! Of course I had to wear glasses or contacts so I thought it was silly since I hated wearing glasses.
I'm so sorry that you have to shelve your traditions this year. But you seem like the type to have a great time no matter what :)
I will be thinking of you on my nice "Quiet" Christmas Day! Have fun with the kids because they are growing up really really fast but they will always remember their mamas special Christmas traditions!
Elaine Benes! Yes, ma'am. I used to see myself in her a lot too :) It was the curly hair and the floral dresses, mostly.
Oh - Christy - the truth is you keep the traditions with or without staying up till 3AM. When you are the Grandma, you can sit on the couch, have your cup of Christmas tea, find one of your many reading glasses in the couch or drawer, and remember the busy times as Emma runs to the store, buys an emergency tube of frosting, can't find the congo square recipe, and grits her teeth at the kids.
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