I have done an important holiday task: I have ordered the prints of the family photo we’ll include with the Christmas cards.
Every year at our annual extended-family get-together I have someone take photos of the seven of us—but this year that task fell to my brother, who took literally eight photos and called it good, and there is no photo among those eight in which fewer than two of us are blinking. I should have handed the camera to one of my sisters-in-law, either of whom I think is more likely to grasp the concept that it takes several hundred family photos to get one good one—or, at least, several dozen to get a decent one.
So instead I have done a collage, which would be less stressful if we did not have SEVEN people (and FOUR cats) to fit into a 4×6-inch format. I try to improve the situation by using as many photos as possible that include more than one person(/cat), but it is still difficult, and this year was more difficult than most. I started with a list of what important things had happened this year: Henry graduating high school and starting college was a big one, and so is William’s new job (he is doing substitute-teaching for the local school district, because he majored in computer science and employers are currently under the misapprehension that AI can do that job without negative consequence); no one else had a Big Event, other than me with my knee-replacement surgery, which does not need a photo (though I had one set aside if there was room, which there was not).
The collage format includes two larger horizontal slots and four smaller vertical slots, so in the two larger slots I did a picture of Paul and me from our anniversary, and a photo I had of the five kids together; then in the smaller slots I did one of Henry at his high school graduation (it was a better photo than his dorm-move-in photo), one of Elizabeth at her summer-camp job, one of William on his first day at his new job, and one of Edward with a cat. Rob is the only kid who didn’t have his own separate photo, but he is also grown and living far away, so that feels understandable. The three not-pictured cats will have to similarly understand.
I am trying trying TRYING to follow the advice of myself-from-earlier-years, which is that I should SEIZE any too-early holiday energy. Any time I think, “Oh, it is too early to get started on that,” I am going to try to remember myself in mid-December frantically wishing I had done it BACK THEN when I had TIME. Last year I got a mild case of Covid in December (too positive to go to work, but not too sick to be sitting up and doing things) and it was THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED: I spent day after day working just on Christmas, and I STILL didn’t get done everything I’d wanted to do! Can I possibly improve myself this year?? It ALWAYS seems Too Early until it seems Too Late! ALWAYS!
So I have ordered the photos even though I am not ready to do the holiday cards, and probably won’t be until after Thanksgiving. And I am remembering my previous resolution to order the gifts in my carts as soon as they go on their first good November sale: I know I will THINK “Oh, but they’ll go on better sales on Black Friday!”—but either they WON’T, or they WILL but it will NOT BE WORTH WAITING, or they WILL but they will be out of stock. Just order them NOW. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are almost always disappointing!
And I am buying stocking stuffers LEFT AND RIGHT, as soon as I see them. Yummy little snacks? BUY THEM. Cute little thingies? BUY THEM. Fun little toys? BUY THEM.
The items for my parents, and for Paul’s sister, which need to be shipped: I am going to work on them SOON, VERY SOON. I sent one item ALREADY to Paul’s sister, and I sent her a self-conscious / apologetic text about it, and she was like No for real we are basically preppers so buy-it-when-you-find-it is our whole philosophy, I breathed a sigh of relief. She and I agreed that Amaz0n is a useful evil, and that we will use their wish lists and ship things to each other nice and early without feeling weird.
I have bought very little for Christmas which is very unlike me. However I feel more prepared than usual because I’ve been keeping a phone list of ideas since May.
We pay a pro to take pictures annually. Expensive- yes- but it’s my gift to myself to have lovely pictures of my kids. She takes pictures for 1.5 hours every time.
Every year the photographer sends a few pictures the next day. These are the pictures which do not require photoshop. There is never more than 1 non- photoshop of the five of us. Sometimes none. I have to wait until she spends some serious computer time merging heads from multiple shops to get the group pics.
This makes me feel so much better, because over the weekend I tried to do a family photo by ourselves with a tripod and timer and it was awful. My kid is 10 and perfectly capable of standing still and smiling, but somehow between the three of us, we didn’t get ONE GOOD PICTURE. Thankfully after the first few minutes, I realized it was going nowhere and my expectations went out the window. But I am hiring a professional next year. Why is it so hard????
I always save most of my vacation so I can be off for weeks upon glorious weeks right before the holidays. But I have one more week of work left first, and family is already sending out lists. Which i am grateful for, but also the best things will be cherry picked the soonest, and I was not ready to (even online) shop yet! Give me one more week! Also, my aunt is going to host Thanksgiving, so I was all yay, no one can complain if I put the tree up before turkey day (maybe assembly and lights only), but now my sister and family are coming in for said holiday and staying with me, and there goes my carefully laid plans!! I am so glad for visiting family and early lists but feeling already rushed somehow? And every year I wonder how on earth I would get it all done without saving said vacation time towards holiday prep? Regardless, it’s almost here and I am ready to get ready (hurry by, final week!)
My shopping is done but I have to ship things, and I am frantic to get it done early because Canada Post is still delivering things. Last year, you might remember they were on strike for the entire holiday season. I am low-key worried that will happen again as they are currently on rotating strikes.
I also have five kids and I feel your pain on the sequences of family pictures in which each one is not quite right somehow. One year in desperation I used fiverr.com to merge two different pictures that were unusable on their own. At the time it was cheap, fast, and easy. Your collage sounds lovely.
I’m glad to hear William’s working, even though it’s not in his chosen field. My similarly-aged-also-living-at-home son is working only very sporadically. And to think I thought his computer science minor would be a useful fallback. He has told me basically what you said. And AI is, of course, also eating into film jobs, which is what he really wants to do, and copywriting, which is what I do. It’s very possible I will be out of a job before I intended to retire (in 5.5 years).
But back to Christmas, I bought a present for my niece and I have some ideas for other people, but that’s the extent of my Christmas prep. I’m waiting for T-giving, when everyone is together, to take the picture for the card. I am not too stressed about it, but I wonder if having a wife instead of a husband helps in the distribution of holiday labor. I am worried more about money than time, because we had an unexpected, large expense recently and I need to rethink my present budget.
It snowed here the other day, so I got some nice christmasy-looking photos of my sons, which I’ll use for cards. I probably won’t do many cards this year though, they’re just so expensive. I’ll wait until Thanksgiving to order them to see if they go on sale.
I’m behind on buying presents this year. I’ve found a bunch of ideas that I normally would have just bought at the time, but I work for the federal government, and am not getting paid, so … obviously, presents are low on the list right now. I’m glad the shutdown appears to be over, and I’ll eventually get paid (probably not until my regular paycheck next week?) but also angry about how everything went down and nothing was solved in regards to healthcare. Lots of conflicting feelings there.
Even though I had firm plans to just CANCEL CHRISTMAS this year; my husband VERY VEHEMENTLY vetoed that idea. So, like you, I have been preparing and buying like a maniac because as you said, it’s too early until it’s too late – and then he said, how much are you spending?! And I very nearly murdered him.
It’s too early until it’s too late will probably be on my tombstone.
Specifically regarding Christmas, I blame my maternal family line, who fired up Christmas carols while we cleared plates from Thanksgiving dinner – AND NOT A MOMENT BEFORE. So I never feel like I can get festive until then, and then it is too late for everything, and I just want to despair. And, my grandmother and mother were stay at home parents who had more time at home to DO the Christmas prep in 25 days, while I am a slave to the machine and resort to shopping online during lunch. Each year I think “well the kids are older so now it will be easier” and it is not. Why am I not jolly?
“Why am I not jolly?” HAHA oh boy does this resonate :)
“No for real we are basically preppers” HA love! I needed this energy, because I have been feeling a bit like it’s too early and then realizing how little time it will take before it’s TOO LATE HOLY SHIT. Going to order photos tomorrow.
“HA love” was my exact reaction, too. The idea of “Preppers” makes me nervous, but someone being robustly reassuring by identifying as such makes me happy.
I had an ABSOLUTE freak out this week about how close Christmas is and how unprepared I am. My kids are 10 and 6 and I hadn’t booked a single Christmas activity (although both my husband and I have a few things booked in with colleagues and friends which made me feel worse, I’m a bad selfish mother…) and this is PROBABLY MAYBE the last Santa year for my oldest (sob). V few gifts bought, no Christmas outfits purchased, etc etc (although I do have lots of thing in an Amazon basket I’m watching prices of…)
But I had a two hour train journey and some work procrastination going on and it felt serendipitous. I booked a santa-visiting magical nighttime woodland walk thing, a trip to the cinema to see the Muppets Christmas Carol, tickets for the grotto at the school fair. I have made 24 prompts for the elf on the bloody shelf, a lot of which are focused around Good Community Work and The Spirit of Giving rather than toilet humour ;) and I have managed to negotiate with my 10yo on what exactly she will consider wearing now anything involving a dress, skirt, sequin, tulle etc is out. The answer is apparently a tartan jumpsuit! This year maybe I’ll even send Christmas cards to the US (we’re in the UK) for the first time in 5 years! (Probably not, know your limits, etc)
Now if someone can grant me a way to get through my little one’s Christmas aesthetic vision, which is to dress exactly like Santa, with braces and a belt and a red hat and black boots for all ‘nice’ family events, that would be great. I don’t even mind giving him what he wants but I literally don’t think it exists ;)
I just went down a brief internet rabbit hole about what the “grotto at the school fair” means, as I’ve never heard that. Google suggests it’s a small decorated space where children can visit with Santa and maybe receive a gift during the school holiday party? Is that correct? Is Santa always a part of it? Where I currently live (large city in the western United States), Christmas celebrations are disallowed in public schools and most parties and activities are “winter” themed to be more culturally inclusive, e.g. no Santa. However, I know my niece’s school in the southern U.S. still goes all out for “Christmas,” so I think it varies a lot here. I love the idea of a Christmas grotto though – sounds super charming!
That’s so interesting! Yes that’s absolutely right, it’s literally a wooden shed in the school playground, and a volunteer dressed as Santa who will meet each kid, take a quick photo and give them a gift (always a book at our school),
The UK is pretty chilled about these things – although it might vary at a faith school I guess. Our kids celebrate all kinds of religious festivals, so they’ll do things to mark Diwali for example. And then they do Christmas jumper day, Christmas dinner at school, carol singing, maybe a visit to a church service, and the Santa’s grotto is a small part of the bigger Christmas fundraiser event which is held after school one Friday. Just wait until I tell you about the bottle tombola at the fair, which involves every kid bringing a bottle of wine/beer/anything to school to donate 🤪. The visual of 400 kids trotting in clutching a bottle of Merlot or Prosecco is quite something…
In terms of religion, Christianity is the default religion in the UK but most people are very relaxed about it, it’s a background element of our culture and a church service once or twice a year for a lot of people. So Christmas isn’t really treated as a Christian-specific festival by lots of people. I have Hindu friends for example who will happily join in with all the Santa-related activities, and Jewish friends who mark a kind of Hanukkah-Christmas dual approach.
I LOVE cross cultural exchanges in Swistle’s comment section.
Anyone else want to chime in from where they are?
I wish I could borrow some of. your Christmas motivation because I have none. Actually, I have ANTI motivation, which is just pouting and grumbling about how little I want to do anything Christmassy this year.
I feel like people who are grumpy about it right now are APPROPRIATELY grumpy: we should NOT have to start work/preparations SIX WEEKS IN ADVANCE OF A HOLIDAY. How can we POSSIBLY be expected to be IN THE MOOD, when it is EARLY NOVEMBER?? We are SUPPOSED to be looking at THANKSGIVING RECIPES and helping our children make HAND TURKEYS.
My aunt’s Christmas box to us arrived TODAY, bless her. She lived in Hawaii for many years and so was sensitive about shipping times; she lives in Vegas now but the caution is ingrained. As for us, I don’t like being a scrooge but money is pretty tight, so Christmas is mostly going to be a fancy meal and then cash for my teenager to go out and do All The Christmas Activities with her groups of friends. I don’t do Christmas cards, but I love a good New Year card, so I’m compiling my letter for those and buying a book of stamps each week to get ready.
I don’t do much that is Christmassy.
But on Monday, my list of strangers that I send Holiday cards to came in (it’s from a common interest FB group), and they’re all around the world. So I must make myself sit and do actual, clear, handwriting on a dozen cards, and add little stickers and crocheted doo-dads as gifts.
And then brave the post-office for overseas stamps.
Then I look forward to the receipt of their cards to me.