Christmas, Bring It.

Well, we turned a corner three weekends ago. It is now all Christmas, all the time. One late afternoon weekday on our way to gymnastics, the girls spotted Christmas lights in our neighborhood, their resulting delight (and mine too!) was to communicate with George when we were going to put up our lights. The upcoming weekend was chosen and then jam packed. Not only did we do Christmas decorations - inside and out, we managed washing all of the clothes and clearing out each room of furniture that had the kitchen tile in it (mud, laundry, Riley's bathroom, etc) We also needed to remove any item we did not want dust on because the old tile was being ripped up. I am now up close and personal with the following equation -Construction process=dust everywhere. We also fed and clothed the girls and managed to throw a visit to GaGa's in.

We really pulled out all the stops, as we purchase a new inflatable lawn decoration - Santa coming out of the top of a Christmas tree and added it to our menagerie. I even put a wreath on the porta potty which has to be displayed on our front lawn. Last weekend, I had my come to Jesus moment when I realized that Christmas was two weeks away. I had not shopped in a major way and after finally picking out tile and paint again, I began the Christmas shopping experience. I am still working on Christmas cards, as they have been sitting in the box since late November. The usual Christmas letter is hard to write.


While trying to catch Christmas cheer, one morning I turned on the XM Holly station briefly and it was okay, I did not throw up in my mouth. I switched it to the 80's station quickly and Foreigner's "Faithfully" did make my stomach turn more than the Christmas song. So off we go. Christmas music too! We even made it to the downtown Christmas celebration, fake snow, fake ice skating and lighting of their Christmas tree.

Earlier this week, I felt overwhelmed. I wasn't sure of my tile choice. Christmas pressure was coming upon me. Here's another equation... Christmas = stress, Remodeling construction = stress, mother in law with metastatic breast cancer = stress. That is a lot of stress and I had to be reminded by a dear friend that any one of those is enough to deal with. All three together is over the top. I then had another aha moment, that something in my personality makes me think that I am supposed to handle anything flawlessly and never feel stressed out. Now if a friend had told me the same scenario, I would have given her empathy and comfort, but for myself just harsh judgement. Hmmmm. Something is wrong with this picture. When I finally accepted that these emotions are acceptable, they dissipated! It is OKAY to feel stressed out when life is unbelievably stressful.

So Christmas here we come.