I should start tracking this to see if it’s the same every year; I can say that THIS year the change from “This is fun; I’ve got this!” to feeling overwhelmed/stressed happened right around December 11th. I am hugely grateful to Past Swistle who got all the cards done early, as well as the all the shopping for the two kids from the local Christmas program, as well as quite a bit of other shopping.
I am having my usual and apparently ENDLESS/LIFETIME struggle with thinking I have to do The Most Important Thing FIRST, and then getting stuck because I can’t do that most important thing yet. Fortunately I am also having my usual and apparently ENDLESS/LIFETIME rediscovering of “If I can’t do The Most Important Thing, it is helpful to do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.” This means that a week later, when there is a new Most Important Thing, sometimes I have ALREADY DONE IT when it was not yet a priority. It can feel a little silly to be shopping for Target gift cards for the mail carriers when it is still a month until I need those and it is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT to get Rob’s gifts purchased and into the mail—but it doesn’t feel silly when it’s a week until Christmas and shipping would take 10 days and I wouldn’t want to go into a store, and instead I can just reach into my gift cupboard where the cards have been nestled up and waiting for a couple of weeks.
It is making me clench my teeth to see so many shipping estimates already after Christmas, especially a day or two ago when there were still TWO WHOLE WEEKS before Christmas. You know I have a persistent goal of trying to cut back on Amazon shopping (I am not in any way trying to eliminate it entirely), but there are times when Amazon can get something to me well before Christmas, and the company I’d rather order from is saying it will be January 3-10th, and in those cases I am not feeling even the slightest inclination to self-scold. Oh, I suppose you could get stroppy about it and say “Well, you should have gotten yourself organized to order it back before Thanksgiving, then!!,” but I do hope none of us would be like that, either to ourselves or to others. Not at this festive season.
And things ARE still festive! I don’t mean to imply I am now a roiling mass of stress and nothing is fun! No! I am enjoying the Christmas lights, and reading my Christmas books. We are watching a Christmas show or part of a Christmas movie each evening. I am using my Christmas mugs, which is one of my favorite things; and Henry has been on a pre-bedtime tea kick, which I have joined, so that means choosing an extra Christmas mug each day. Over the weekend I tried a festive cranberry cheesecake recipe, which I was going to save until closer to Christmas—except I remembered we always have PLENTY of sweet festive foods close to Christmas. So I made it at the perfect moment, which was just in time to start stress-eating it.
I am enjoying the feeling of ticking things off the list. At this point, the rising stress is what helps me finally click the order button on things I’ve been waffling about. There is no more time to browse pages of earring possibilities for your niece, it is time to click and purchase! You need one more gift for Paul’s sister before you can ship her box, so you’d better pick something now! A little surge of stress, followed by the satisfaction of having successfully Done the Thing: the earrings ordered, the gift chosen and bought, the relief of no longer waffling.
It is pleasing to track the package I mailed to my parents and see that it will be there today; once it’s there, that part of Christmas clicks into place. This weekend we will fetch the twins, and then all of us who are coming home will be home, and THAT part of Christmas will click into place. I will select a gift for my workplace Secret Santa exchange, and I will put it in a pretty gift bag and sneak it into work and put it somewhere they’ll find it, and there will be another click. Click, click, click, it is getting done!
I am intermittently stressed about Christmas, not about anything specific, but by the thought that I must be forgetting Something Very Important. I ordered a couple of things this morning and that help the feeling abate, even though neither was Very Important.
That cheesecake looks good and cheesecake tends not to spike my blood sugar, because of the fat. Filing that idea away.
Thanks for the inspiration! I read this then headed out to the supermarket and drug store for a semi-disorganized grab of baking ingredients and stocking stuffers and wrapping supplies. Click, click, click…every bit helps! (And that cheesecake recipe looks yum and is so pretty!)
I am counting on the fact that I’m on vacation starting tomorrow to help alleviate some of the angst I’m feeling right about now. But, somehow, we WILL get it all done – we always do, right?
It doesn’t help now, of course, but do you follow The Lazy Genius on Instagram? She a did a reel (?) or a story (?) or whatever it’s called about how to organize and prioritize what needs to be done and when that I thought was extremely helpful; now I just have to remind myself to go find it next year.
That cheesecake is making me drool! I’ve printed it out…maybe next year for Thanksgiving; too many other treats floating around here right now.
That cheesecake sounds amazing. I need something delicious to stress eat.
I think it’s highly possible I’ve lulled myself into a false sense of security, convinced myself everything is under control and actually it’s not at all….
But this week is all about work deadlines so once those are out of the way I’ll go and visit my gift stockpile and assess what I’ve forgotten, and start wrapping – although I know I do need more tape!
Every year I lose at least one gift and scramble about to find it. And this year my husband sent a few bigger gifts home to my parents’ (we’re at their house for Christmas) without taking photos or making notes… so that’s going to be mind-blowingly confusing!
I should have zero Christmas stress this year: we are going out of town the week before, which is the sole present to each other, our children, and their significant others so that seriously cuts back on shopping and wrapping. We decided not to decorate at all since we will be gone, so that’s hours of work I don’t have to do. On the Day itself, it will only be my husband, myself, and one daughter and we’re going to do something extremely low-key, so no dinner prep stress.
And yet! I am struggling with the few tasks I have left! It’s like the stress has expanded to fill the space, like a not-fun water balloon.
In other news, a friend made that same cheesecake over the weekend but for the topping, she sugared fresh cranberries and sprinkled them across the top. It looked so festive and fancy!
Oooo, that sounds delicious. The recipe said to push the cranberries through a strainer to get rid of the skin and pulp, and I was like “…but I want the skin and pulp,” so I skipped the straining step. But then the cranberry stuff came out kind of thick, so I had to add more water, and anyway maybe next time I will sugar the cranberries instead!
Yesterday I mailed gifts to my entire extended family, EVEN THOUGH my gifts to friends were not wrapped or ready to mail, because I wanted that piece in place! I feel I am learning from you, Swistle!
I so relate to this! My biggest Christmas stress right now is something I have NO control over. My eldest, who lives with their partner in Chicago, keeps delaying buying their train tickets to be here in my small Michigan town for Christmas. I’m still waiting to find out if they are coming 12/25 or 12/26. I can’t plan meals until I know.
Amtrak tickets are selling out and I sent a gentle message 3 days ago reminding them that they might want to get their tickets (they don’t drive) and have heard nothing since. If tickets sell out, they have no way to get here for Christmas. They are 33 and argh, it drives me nuts that I go through this stress annually!
Solidarity, sister! My older sister doesn’t drive and as much as I try to stay silent when she’s making travel plans to visit, her plans often make NO SENSE and would hugely inconvenience family members here who have to ferry her about. My husband warns me to stay out of it, but I CANNOT stay silent and have me, my mother, and my step-mother driving all over tarnation because my sister cannot figure out simple logistics.
Recently I had to tell my sister “a bus ticket is only a good deal if it takes you where you need to go” because she wanted to save a few dollars and be dropped off by the bus mid-Christmas-afternoon an hour’s drive through the city instead of 30 minutes by highway from my mother’s house.
I am stressing about the family calendar! I have a new computer but am afraid that when I try to set it up with all my photos and software something will go wrong, so I’m doing it on my old computer, but my old one has a tendency to blink off or crash without warning, hence the new computer. I’m trying to save what I’m doing every couple of minutes and have done 3 of the 12 months required for each of the 4 calendars I’m making, but it’s slow going and printing and shipping deadlines are looming.
*deep breath and remind myself that I’ve got a family photo picked, printed and inserted into Christmas cards, and all but 3 cards are already in the mail, I’ve bought new gift bags to replace the old ones that are falling apart, I’ve pretty much done my Christmas shopping, I’ve bought nibbly hors d’oeuvres for Christmas day, and the tree is right behind me, ready for festooning with lights and ornaments*
I am doing the Christmas stuff I enjoy doing and hoping really hard that everything works out.
I also did a bunch of non-Christmas stuff that I do not enjoy at all, and somehow the virtue I feel about that is making me feel as though I deserve to do the Christmas stuff I like. Certain members of my extended family are being less than communicative about elements of our celebration, and I have resolved not to scramble to pick up their slack. Planned response to any late-arriving requests: “Oh, sorry, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to pull that off now. Can’t wait to see you, though!”
I go to pick up one kid in about an hour and I am feeling pretty excited about that.
I was doing great until my darling daughter called all stressed about gifting she was doing and suddenly I’m in a panic, that stuff is catchy. SIGH.
I’m doing AMAZINGLY well (for me) in terms of being prepped this year, but my Work Situation is so irritating and frustrating that I am gaining NONE SATISFACTION from the personal triumphs. Similarly to Leigh, it seems that some sort of unpleasant stress-water-balloon will fill up the December space no matter what >:-(