The December Conundrum
Monday and Tuesday I woke up in the middle of the night stressing about Christmas prep. I had a couple difficult gifts to finalize (that needed to be mailed, eek!), I have a ton of cookies to bake, I still haven’t sent out my cards, and when am I going to wrap all the kids’ gifts??? The crazy thing is, these are all things I love! I LOVE Christmas! I love gifts, cookies, and Christmas cards. I wish I could just relax and enjoy it more. This is why, although Christmas is my favorite holiday, November is actually my favorite month. I love when I can start thinking about Christmas, but there’s no stress. I love the excitement of seeing Christmas appear in stores, but being able to browse and observe without worrying, because “it’s still early.” I really need to shift my perspective. It would seem weird to bake and freeze Christmas cookies in November, but doing so would actually help me so much. Why don’t I just start earlier??? This year, because Thanksgiving was so late, I finally broke my rule about not starting Christmas until Black Friday. We decorated our tree before Thanksgiving, and guess what- nothing bad happened! We still had Thanksgiving and appreciated the day just as much- maybe even more, because we had a festive and pretty Christmas tree to look at. I’m stating it here, officially- next year I AM STARTING CHRISTMAS PREP IN NOVEMBER AND THAT’S THAT. Maybe that way I can avoid the December panic situation. I am feeling a little better today, because Wednesday I buckled down and got several things done. First- I had a wrapping session: The “Santa” presents are wrapped and hidden away until they, ahem, magically appear under the tree on Christmas morning. I binged episodes of “Holiday Baking Championship” and wrapped all the gifts I have so far. I enjoyed it- but my only question is, why did this take me two hours??? Okay- I wasn’t wrapping for the ENTIRE two hours. I had to remove some of the gifts from their packaging and find gift boxes. But still. Why does it take so long? My second question is, why does this pile of presents look so puny? I would say that’s only about half the gifts so far, but the things still arriving are also pretty small (my daughter asked for a lot of jewelry this year.) This isn’t going to look very festive under the tree! I’m still waiting for blankets for both kids, with pictures of our cats on them- those should be bulky, at least. I also finalized the tricky gifts and GOT THEM SENT! And while I was at the post office, I bought holiday stamps, so I’m all ready to start on my Christmas cards. And- Sunday is going to be a marathon baking day. I have to bake two kinds of cutout cookies- regular sugar cookies and gingerbread. These are for our Christmas Eve cookie decorating tradition (once again- these could be made in NOVEMBER and be waiting in the freezer… next year.) And I have to bake at least two other kids of cookies- probably biscotti and molasses cookies- for my family’s general happiness, and to be included with gifts. If I can get those four baked on Sunday, I’ll have time to make one or two more next week (peanut butter balls are also a Christmas must.) So… I slept much better last night. There’s still a lot to do, but there’s also plenty of time. I still have gifts to purchase- I don’t have anything for my husband yet- but thank you, Amazon. I know people have issues with Amazon, but knowing I can order something (pretty much anything I want!) and have it arrive in two days, is keeping me sane. If you celebrate Christmas, do you feel like you’ll be ready? Do you order gifts from Amazon? Are you baking cookies? November or December- which month do you like better? Top photo by Doriana Popa on Unsplash