I must confess: I’ve not been in the holiday spirit AT ALL this month. I’ve been the queen of not enjoying celebration. I dial the radio away from Christmas music. I proposed not having a tree at all this year. It all just seemed too much, too involved, too wearing to contemplate doing it again. And it will all have to be put away at New Year’s and that’s tiring too! Bah, hum-bug! I see other people having a wonderful time, dressing up, handing out presents, making merry, and I just feel sad.
Now, before you get all sad yourself and turn away… at this writing, the tree is up, the stockings are hung, the garland is twined, the wreaths are on the door. I’ve addressed half a dozen cards. I’ve done all my shopping, except for a gift for MyMerman. I even made a batch of Christmas cookies last night and was bad enough to eat them for breakfast this morning. If this isn’t Christmas spirit, it’s pretty dang close. All I need is some Christmas lingerie, some spiked hot chocolate, the Christmas giftie I know is under the tree (because I saw him tell the girl to wrap it) and MyMan back at home from the wilds of his weekly travels.
I wish I had more time to make a better post, but there are presents to wrap and get in the mail before the lingerie and hot chocolate can come out. But I’m also scratching my head and wondering how I managed to move from “cancel Christmas” to “how much can I get done by…?” and “oh wouldn’t it be fun if?”
So tell me, friends: How do you get yourself to move from the supreme pout to the willing embrace of a task that has you scared and running? Not just Christmas, but any job – like writing? How do you pin yourself down and do the work when you would really rather be out doing almost anything else?
(ps, I do not know this pouting child, she was a lucky find in a google search and I wish her the very happiest Christmas ever. All the other photos in her family’s flickr stream show her as a happy little girl. The photo was marked ‘public’ and I used it. Do we want a post on privacy here?)