A Complaint

I hate the endless erranding and mindless purchasing this time of year. Why can't it just be quiet and magic and stillness and beauty for four weeks straight? You know - as soon as you're done eating Thanksgiving dinner, a hush settles over the room and quite suddenly, the magic of Christmas appears and lingers over one's head for the entire holiday season. I guess I find myself frustrated at my year-after-year inability to achieve that perfection. But I also find that I have to write things like that to remind myself of just how unrealistic that is. Seeing it in concrete form makes it seem even more ludicrous.
Though this is the Christmas season, there are still birthday parties to go to, porches to paint and groceries to buy. I guess it just stinks to be a grown-up this time of year. Nobody hands you glue, glitter and scissors and asks you to make pretty snowflakes. Instead, you have to make sure Junior and Little Miss have hand-made gifts to pass out to classmates, friends and family, along with the incredible, "easy," hand-made gifts from the kitchen that you are also supposed to hand out from yourself to all the people I just mentioned.
The truth is, though, I don't know anybody that really expects that. We all think that everybody does, but "everybody" is such a vague acquaintance. Who are those people? Some people think that's who I am. I think I've decided to destroy their foolish illusions this year. Nobody's gettin' ANYTHING homemade from me this Christmas. Unless you happen to stop by my house on the 23rd. That's when I'll be baking Christmas cookies. I always like company in the kitchen, and you are welcome to pull up a chair, have a warm cookie and some hot tea or coffee and visit while I have fun. But don't expect that it's going to be clean yet. I'll clean on Christmas Eve. It hasn't happened since before Thanksgiving, and I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
How do you like that, "everybody?"

DAILY BLISS: Being almost done with my shopping and being really excited about what I decided to give my brother. It makes me giggle every time I think of it!

<3 Christy