Since beginning of November, (right after our trip to Maui,) I've been feeling overwhelmed. It's been building and is more or less coming to a head this week. I'm averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night. Six day of this, so I'm kinda a mess right now.
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| Required Annual Santa Pix Check! |
Part of my problem is that my mom is one of those people who thinks Christmas should be nothing short of a "Norman Rockwell-esk" event. (It's been drilled into me, and I'm getting over it, but old habits die hard.) A few years back, us kids rebelled & told my mom to pick a day BEFORE Christmas to celebrate as a family. (She goes nuts w/the amount of gifts they bestow on the kids, so it takes a while to get through them all.) We were tired of getting up at the butt-crack of dawn to do Santa gifts & rush through our families' opening of gifts on Christmas morning. Just so that we could rush through gifts at her house before all the extraneous relatives showed up. We were lucky to have a cup of coffee, much less breakfast during those years. Moving it to an earlier date, has taken some of the heat off, but not all.
It's also important that we participate in several family traditions. I'm not taking issue w/these. For the most part, I want to do this stuff and want my girls to have these experiences. Mostly, I'm just bitching bc it's my blog and I can, (neener-neener- neener,) and bc this is part of what makes me feel like I'm going to lose my ever-loving mind. There are three "must-do" Christmas related activites: 1) Christmas in the Park, 2) Nutcracker Ballet and 3) Christmas baking. This year, BigSpeak's brownie troop took part in a special showing of the Nutcracker, so we got to go to a tour of the back stage, costumes and props departments before the performance. Had an hour dinner break, and then got to see the actual performance. (I'm pretty sure, it was their dress rehearsal.) Kudos to the Girl Scouts for arranging that one for me. Christmas baking has become my thing in the past few years. Not because I love to bake, but because I have best kitchen for all of us to work in. I mentioned to DaddySpeak that the baking event is occurring Saturday, and he rolled his eyes & muttered under his breath. (I believe that he feels about Christmas the same as what he feels toward Disney. Told you I married the anti-Christ. I think Christmas would be okay, but it comes right in the middle of college football AND basketball seasons! Yeah, he's not real motivated to participate in anything else.) I told him the girls had actually been pestering me about doing it. To which he replied, he was fine with it, but he's not fine w/how I'm always wreaked for days after. And he's right. I had already purchased a "gingerbread village" for the girls to put together & decorate. (All they really care about is the decorating anyway.) I decided that I'm not going to bake. I might use some refrigerator dough & cook a few batches, maybe. I'll helping the girls decorate. No one cares if I make cookies or not. Except my mom, so I'm not telling her till she gets here. Not participating in the actual baking would throw off her Rockwell vibe. The last thing is "Christmas in the Park." It's really cool and we try to get to it every year, but it is the same every year. Last year my parents were upset that we weren't taking the girls, so they took them. I liked that version. I think they should continue doing that & make it the new tradition. Personally, I'm not all that into hanging out in the cold. A few years ago, DaddySpeak and I mapped out the best local decorated houses & take the girls to see them. We've hit Vasona's Fantasy of Lights, in past years, but it's pretty crowded & it had more cache w/the girls when they were younger. I think there's something extra cool about seeing a house or entire street all decorated. Even though we know it's there, there's still something unexpected about it, that makes it seem cooler.
I hadn't written anything, bc I was feeling so overwhelmed. Maybe getting it all out there will help and I'll start sleeping again.
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