Am I ready for the holidays? Seems like an innocent enough question. It's pretty much the question I get asked over and over and over again this time of year. But, what I want to know is this...
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?! Why are you asking me this question? How should I answer? Usually, just to be polite, I say, "Yeah, sure. How about you?" Then I wonder, what will this schmuck answer?
Okay, first of all, I'm Jewish, so what should this mean to me? Have I taken my menorah out yet? Cleaned out the wax from last year? Polished it so it looks all shiny and new? Ummm, no, none of those things apply to me. I pull the menorah out the DAY OF the holiday. See people, it's not that hard. Gifts? Sure, I buy the kids a few gifts. Big whoop-dee-doo! I walk into Best Buy or J&R and pick up an XBox game for my son or some new headphones for my daughter or maybe an iTunes gift card. Sure, there are lines, but that means it takes me 10 minutes more than usual.
My wife? Maybe she'll get a gift, IF I see something I want to get for her. If not, then not. And, most importantly, she won't care!
So, what does the rest of the world have to do? Well, let's see...go get a recently chopped down tree, strap it to your car, drag it through your house, get pine needles everywhere, set it up in your living room, clean up the pine needles, decorate it, and collapse from exhaustion. What else needs to be done? Well, you need to get out the ladder and put lights all over the house and the statue of Santa on the roof. Then you need to make sure THEY WORK! And do it all over again when they don't. That sounds like fun! I wish I could be doing THAT! What's next? Oh, yeah, presents. So you need to go buy everyone and their mother and their mother's pet a gift. Ummm, no thank you.
And what's the right answer to this question? "No, not this year, so I'm holding them in January instead." Does that work? Guess what, the holidays will come and go whether you are ready for them or not.
People wonder why they have so much stress over the holiday season. Well, THIS IS WHY!!! You have put so much stupid pressure on yourself to BE READY. What will happen when you are not? Sure, a couple of sad kids and pissed off relatives, but they'll get over it. They may even be happy when they get gifts mid-January when everyone else is playing with broken toys.
So, CALM DOWN people! You don't need to be READY for the holidays. Just try to have fun and enjoy. Have another rum-laced egg nog, okay?
Sheesh!
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6 comments:
this year will be easy - I'm getting everyone a brand new, shiny subedu!! hehehe
but seriously - I don't do most of that stuff you mentioned...
in fact I have it pretty well under control =)
to 'get ready' - about a month ago I made a cookie list and started touching up my amazon wish list
last thursday my mother and I went out and got most of what we need to fill the monkey's stocking (we're only doing a stocking for her since Santa is going to AZ this year)
after discovering last weekend that some rodents got into our shed and made a nest out of our fake tree, Monday we went out and got a perfectly shaped, awesome smelling, real tree - it was a reasonable size this year so the spousal unit had no trouble getting it in the house or into the stand (altogether about 5 minutes) we let the branches drop then he put the lights on it Tuesday night... I decorated it yesterday
today I will be ordering Sam's gifts and printing out all of my cookie recipes then making a list of any ingredients I still need to pick up... and because I always have all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, spices etc.) I will be bagging up the dry ingredients for each recipe and setting them aside - also chopping any nuts that need chopping and any other little things I can do ahead of time
over the weekend I will go grocery shopping and get whatever stuff I am missing... also because my mother's birthday is Monday I will go out and get her a gift - then Sam and I will probably watch a movie and drink cocoa while we make popcorn and cranberry strings as the final touch to our pretty, pretty tree
next week I will wrap what we have for the monkey and maybe get her a few more things if I happen to go out anywhere and see anything good...
then I'm pretty much smooooooooth until the 22nd... when I start my enormous baking project!! (at least double batches of probably half a dozen different kinds of cookies) - phew!!
really the 22nd through the 25th is usually a big blur to me - especially now with my sister and the monkey living in AZ and visiting/staying with us in our tiny house for the holiday - and the sort of ridiculous amount of visiting we have to do between Christmas eve and Christmas day
THEN we have the monkey staying with us until new years eve - WOO HOO
but about the only thing I'm somewhat stressed about is Christmas eve (my sister and the kid are getting here that day and I don't know what to do with them while Sam and I are supposed to be visiting his Dad's family for dinner a couple towns away) - I don't want to leave them alone to have PB&J's for Christmas eve dinner =(
last year it worked out nicely... we had an ice storm that kept us home haaaa
and Christmas dinner... I've been hoping that since we did thanksgiving, my aunt down the road would step up and offer to do Christmas... but so far not so good
and I REALLY don't want to have to try to plan/prepare a meal for a dozen people and cram them all into my house after doing all that baking and visiting the night before AND that morning (we do Sam's mother's side Christmas morning) AND while having guests (possibly crashing on the couches) - and I KNOW Sam doesn't want them all here AGAIN!! haaaa
so am I ready? as ready as I can be... for now!! hehehe
OOH I think I may have Amber beat for the longest comment ever!! haaaa
Yeah, Kitty, you're not the RULE for most things.
Still, that sounds like more than I'd like to do. And more than you'd like to do under normal circumstances.
it IS more than I'd like to do (under normal circumstances) but it's a special occasion - I don't mind doing a little more every now and then
if I had to try to keep that pace all year I'd lose my mind!! hehehe but a couple few times a year is fine... especially since most of it is enjoyable
I enjoy decorating, I enjoy giving gifts, I enjoy baking, I enjoy spending time with (some of) our family... I enjoy the traditions
the problem is the commercialization - but I don't really buy into all that
aside from the lights (for safety reasons) everything on my tree is either handed down from my grandmother and mother (stuff that was on my mother's tree when she grew up our our tree when I grew up) or hand made
most of my gifts are baked or hand made (giving my sister a scrap book of the monkey's summer with us)
I could make it A LOT easier on myself by giving everyone useless crap I either bought throughout the year or ordered from the internet... but I CHOOSE to make more work for myself by making them all something I know they will share and enjoy and won't end up re-gifted or as landfill when they clean out their closets next
Whooo hoooo!!! Finally someone says it! I don't mean to be a scrooge but there are so many things I hate about the holidays. I don't need to go into them cos you mentioned 'em all. Thank you!!!
By the way, I hate Facebook. I try to post my holiday sentiments in a very funny little cartoon and I end up pissing off my shop-happy, materialistic cousin. Gees-us Christ! :-)
I don't FEEL tordi...
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