Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Holiday Ramp Up

It's starting! Can you feel it? Holidaze Anxiety! This is the time of year that my Marfa Stewart really comes out. I start thinking about the Thanksgiving dinner menu I'm going to make, how the table will be perfectly set and flower arrangements will be tastefully accenting the clean, decorated house. How after Thanksgiving, I'll start the baking for holiday gift-giving and cookie-exchanging. Hand-cut, hand decorated Gingerbread Men (yes I really do manage to do that on the occasional odd year, just like my mother did every year). Hand-strung popcorn and cranberry garland for the tree and perfectly wrapped and elaborately decorate packages piled all around the tree that has a Christmas village and train going underneath it. My mind gets in a whirl with a picture perfect holiday, influenced by every magazine cover and recipe I see.

Than the time starts to fly by, I don't get the house cleaning done, I run out of time to bake, I don't get silver polished, I have to throw myself into the holiday crowds to get the shopping done, I get the tree decorated about 10pm Christmas Eve and finish wrapping the presents about 3am the next morning.

One by one, things get edited off the list. Baked gifts---get real! Garland---just a waste of good cranberries and popcorn! Nagging and resenting the husband and kids---I might have time to do something if they got off their asses and helped with the Christmas Village or the Nutcraker displays. The only thing my husband decides to do is make a batch of his family's traditional Christmas tea, to spike and drink during the season. Of course the kitchen is a sticky mess after his foray into it. The Christmas Village just becomes a place the cat likes to sleep, looking like Catzilla among lit houses and the tipped over ice skaters and horse drawn carriage, and he makes the 'white snow' (white felt cloth under the whole picturesque village scene) look like a coal fired plant is nearby.

I end up going near crazy trying to get a few of my goals down, have at least one major breakdown and scream at everyone (which I'm sure causes a couple of the gifts I was going to get be tossed) and slide into Christmas as a frumpy, frazzled mess.

Don't you just love the holiday season? I really, really do!

1 comment:

  1. Lol, you sound just like me at this time of year. I start out with big plans too, then start scaling them down, then they finally just fizzle out. Oh well, there's always next year!

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