This is basically a holiday cheer fear post! My family celebrates Christmas, which brings me to a bad emotional place today. I suppose my feelings about the holiday could resonate with anyone who celebrates a holiday where there's an actual day/date involved.
I feel like this: everyone else who celebrates Christmas saw it coming. Everyone with a working brain (the kind that has the organizational ~ time centered ~ logical sections connected and fully functioning) knew that once December started it was going to be day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4 - all the fricking way up to DAY 25 - the day of celebration itself!
Everyone but ME. It hit me today! Today I noticed the date - December 10 - on my trust iCal. Ohhhhmy, I started breathing in that short-breath, panicked way (after a huge gasp). Then my brain started racing. I started making lists - then I started trying to organize the lists (which for me means categorizing the lists - so that I'm writing the same thing on a few different lists, crossing most things off all lists, rewriting new lists, getting frustrated with lists, deciding to throw the lists out but being unable to find most of them - even though I was JUST working on them two minutes ago and never got up from my desk!).
I shared my fear and trepidation with a friend as soon as I could breath normally again. She pointed out that probably most people feel this way (but I doubt it!). She told me not to worry, she said that things would turn out fine - which reminded me of the post I put up yesterday - where I quoted something similar from the book "Christmas and How to Survive It". And I know things will work out fine (no matter what I forget or screw up), but really - I wonder...do the holidays sneak up behind everyone and scare the bejesus out of them?
This year I have so much done (chalk that up to decluttering - wow, things are easier to do when you can find most of what you're looking for - except lists). I probably have three times as much done this year than any other year in recent history. And then, since we've planned a smaller Christmas this year - things ought to be going pretty well.
Let's do the math and see: If we are doing half as much hoopla than last year, and three times as much as usual is already done - then we've probably got ... um... oh, right! I don't DO math - there's a reason for that - no good at it. Forget the math!
So ~ Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...except we don't have a goose (or even any idea whether we're having turkey or ham this year) - but we do have a whole sh*!load of top-shelf chocolate from Stutz Candy (damn! - they take checks, which just makes it impossible not to overdo) - so...the only thing getting fat right now is ME. And still, sooo much to do!
I'm hoping YOUR holiday preparations are swimming along nicely! For me ~ I think it's time to go make a list.
