What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?
-George Elliot
There’s a quote for every week in my planner. To be honest, most weeks I don’t even read them- they’re in tiny, light colored letters and my eyes just skip over the whole thing. This was the quote for last week though, and it made me think of the ways people have made my life easier recently.
First there was the big house cleanup last Sunday. While I was gone all day, my son went to my husband and said “Mom needs help.” Yes, I needed help so badly, but I hadn’t asked for it- but they saw it and cleaned the entire house in my absence.
Then, on the evening of the 22nd, my daughter had a group of friends over. One of the girls asked if I had any presents that still needed wrapping. Well…. yes I did have a few! She offered to wrap them for me, and this is how they came out:
The only problem was, next to these the other presents looked like absolute crap, ha ha. While my daughter was opening her gifts (which admittedly were shabbily wrapped) she said “I think Santa’s elves were underpaid this year.” Yes they were! Overworked and underpaid. I’m seriously thinking of paying my daughter’s friend to wrap all our gifts next year.
Next up- we got this card from our vet:
The entire staff wrote little message of condolence inside. Yes, I cried, and yes, it now sits on our “Charlotte shelf.”
So much kindness in the world! What a nice thing to experience in the week of Christmas.
Speaking of which, we’re still celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas, although the days are starting to get a little less sparkly. For the third day, we ordered Thai food and binge watched Severance. Today was a big football day. We watched the Dolphins win, then watched parts of the Eagles/Bills game (in between reading and cooking). For dinner, my son requested apps, New Year’s Eve style (since he won’t be here on New Year’s).
Now we’re settling down to watch the Bears game. This was a fun day, but tomorrow (the fifth day of Christmas) will be a little challenging. My son leaves, which is always hard, and we’re taking down the Christmas tree. The problem with a real tree is, they start to look really depressing after a while.
If we leave it up much longer, it’s going to look like one big Charlie Brown tree. It’s sad, but we’ll leave all the other decorations up for a while.
That’s a wrap!
How was your weekend? Do you still have Christmas decorations up?
Top photo by Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash
18 Responses
We do still have Christmas decorations up (though I’ve taken down a few little things here and there). I love the tree and the lights and I’m tempted to leave the tree up into January… but I’m also itching to get it dismantled. We will see which urge wins out.
I am still smiling about your clean house. All the gold stars to Paul for recognizing the need and stepping up to help WITHOUT BEING ASKED.
Those presents. Just… wow. My father-in-law wrapped a few presents (mostly for my husband) and he could seriously be one of those mall wrappers. He is so fastidious and everything looks professional. And then there are my presents. I CAN wrap a very beautiful present, but most of the time I simply do not feel like it’s worth my time and effort because it gets unwrapped in seconds, regardless of what it looks like. (Maybe that’s a bad attitude.) How sweet of Angie’s friend to offer to help and she must really love wrapping! I’d definitely hire her. Stephany also loves wrapping. Maybe you can coordinate a get together: you can hang out with her cats while she wraps your presents. Sounds like a win, win.
And that’s very sweet of your vet, and what a lovely sentiment on the card. <3
Yes, I know Stephany loves wrapping! Darn- I wish we lived closer to each other. I also can wrap pretty nicely (maybe not as well as my daughter’s friend) but I just didn’t have the time to put into it. As you said- everything gets unwrapped pretty quickly.
Wow, Angie’s friend is amazing at wrapping! You 100% should hire her to wrap your gifts next year! That would be money well spent. My gifts do NOT look like that! I don’t even bother with ribbons or bows. I am just not right brained at all and just aim to get the gifts wrapped. But the boys do not appreciate well-wrapped gifts so it’s ok.
I’m glad the merriment has continued but I know the tone will change when Paul leaves. 🙁 Is he flying to Texas to see his GF or is he flying back to Chicago?
We still have our decorations up and will have them up for the next several weeks. I like/need the glow of our tree as long as possible! It’s fake so can stay up until mid-January. Maybe I will take it down on MLK day. We had a cozy day yesterday while we had a snow storm. I did a CG workout, did a bunch of meal prep, read/napped, and then took Paul sledding in fresh snow for over an hour.
Oh, that day sounds nice! And, if we had a fake tree I would leave it up. Honestly, I would switch over to an artificial tree, but the family is pushing back. I’ll do it one of these years. I do still have the other decorations up, which include a lot of white lights so at least that’s cheerful.
I started taking things down yesterday… many are just winter-related… haven’t decided if I should leave them.
I would leave them, unless they’re feeling clutter-y to you. That can definitely happen with the holiday stuff.
We will keep up our tree for a while. This is the advantage of not starting Christmas early – I’m not over the decorations yet and I like the lights and the cards hung up. Also, our tree is artificial, so no worries about it drying out!
My husband is a master present wrapper. He worked at JC Penney when he was in high school and apparently got quite the training there during holidays!
So do you have your husband wrap all the gifts? I guess he can’t wrap his own.
I still have my card display up, and lots of white lights. Things will stay moderately festive for a while longer.
You did have some great helpers last week. That card from your vet is really sweet. <3
We will take our (fake) tree down this weekend. I’ve got some new puzzles and need my puzzle corner back!
I know- and everyone on the staff wrote such a thoughtful message!
That’s a good motivation to take the tree down- you need the space back.
My Christmas tree and decorations are still up – and will be at least until the 6th! – because I have to ween myself off slowly… and luckily, we have an artificial tree, so it’s not drying out or anything.
So nice of Angie’s friend to help you wrap presents. I love wrapping presents, so I’d have probably not wanted to outsource that but hey, never say no to someone who wants to help! 😉
And how sweet of your vet’s office to send the card. I can imagine you must have missed Charlotte this Christmas!
Yes, we did think a lot about her. The kids both got little photo collages and my husband and I got a bigger, framed photo of Charlotte under the tree.
The 6th is the official end of Christmas (if you’re celebrating for 12 days) so it’s the perfect day to take the tree down.
I have a fake tree and so do my parents so we can keep them up past New Years, and I’m not planning to take mine down until the second weekend of January since I’m staying with my parents until this coming Sunday. So it’ll be nice to have some joy to come back to when I have to go back to work and real life!
You should definitely hire your daughter’s friend to wrap gifts next year — they look amazing!
Artificial trees for the win. Our real tree was looking so, so depressing. We still have the other decorations up so it’s not too depressing (yet).
I’m seriously going to hire that girl for next year- I’m making a note of it in my planner!
We ended up with three Christmas decorations as there’s stuff from my parents-in-laws’ house in front of the door to our eaves storage: a crocheted Christmas tree from my friend Jen, an electric candle in a lantern from my BookCrossing secret santa and a snowflake ornament from our cat-sitter! I hope I remember to take them down on the 6th!
I did love these tales of kindness; thank you for sharing them.
Oh that card from the vet! How kind.
Wrapping gifts may be my least favorite part of Christmas! I love the idea of outsourcing that task to someone else!
What lovely helpers you’ve had, Jenny. I am so glad.
That card from your vet made me cry. We got a similar one the year Scout died. Vets are amazing… (There’s this amazing book called _The Other Family Doctor_ (I think) that made me love them more.)
I love the George Elliot quote. I think a lot about Horace Mann’s “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity” when I feel weak.
I love this post so much! I love that Paul saw that you needed help and stepped up with your husband. So sweet. And I love your daughter’s friend who helped wrap some presents! She did an amazing job!
I am fully de-Christmased and I am pretty happy about it. Once Christmas is over, I’m ready for my apartment to return to normal. That’s probably why I set everything up in mid-November since I know it won’t last long after Dec 25th!