Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Drive Myself Crazy

For whatever reason, it seems like I stress myself out more and more every year about the holidays. It's like I want everything to be perfect that I dont' enjoy it as much as I would like. I LOVE Christmas, I really do. But I guess I want everyone else to love it as much as I do, so I try to make it too perfect or something. For example, my shopping is almost done, I have drug all the boxes containing Christmas decorations out and arranged them in 'order.' I have figured out which cookies I am going to make and what days I will bake them, I have wrapped most of the presents I have bought (except those for my kids from Santa), and I have even put some lights outside in the bushes. Our Christmas cards are almost done.....I make our cards and the actual card itself is done but I need to print out our letter and stuff the envelopes, which are already addressed and return-addressed. I have the stamps and stickers bought that I put on the back and can stick those on any time now. But I still feel like I am behind. Why am I so crazy about this stuff? I have this belief that our tree must be up no later than the Friday after Thanksgiving and that our outside lights must be lit that night for the first time. Which means that this weekend, I must finish the outside. I just want to be able to enjoy December and not have to do all this stuff when I really want to be driving around looking at light displays, visiting Santa, seeing Christmas-related movies and maybe even hearing some live music. I also want to enjoy the beginning of basketball season without constantly thinking about everything else I ought to be doing. I am so far ahead of the game than most people, yet I still drive myself crazy! AUGH!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! You are waaaayyyy ahead of me, but of course, I have done absolutely NOTHING. I'm usually really stressed out around the holidays and I'm usually the one who tries to make everything special and perfect. This year I have officially given myself permission to slack off. :)

Nancy R said...

Your idea of perfect is probably far more involved than your family's. Is your family going to enjoy the holiday less if you don't get things done on your schedule? I think you should give yourself permission to slack off - because if you make yourself crazy then your family won't enjoy themselves either. Maybe you should have a Christmas planning meeting to determine what traditions are most important to your gang.

On the other hand, The Flylady has a Christmas Planning Guide thing you can download from her site. With that you can map out all you want to do and make yourself a schedule of sorts - that way even if not everything is done, you at least know when it will be, lol.