Maybe it's just me, but I swear someone pushes a button somewhere and makes the last three months of the year go into turbo mode. Where does the time go? Where does it escape to?
Here's what happens. By summer's end, the Halloween costumes and decorations dominate space nearly everywhere I shop. By the time Halloween actually gets here, we are besieged with everything Christmas.
Why does it feel like I have just disposed of the moldy jack o' lantern on my porch and the next week it is nearly Thanksgiving? Where does the time go? Where does it escape to?
Really, it was just Labor Day and, now, it is nearly Thanksgiving. This year it is coming as early as it possibly can on the calendar, and it sure came fast. I like Thanksgiving, but it also means that Christmas is only a month away. Yes, that joyous time of year is just around the corner... AGAIN.
I love this time of year, but as I get older and crankier, it becomes increasingly more difficult for me to get my butt in gear and keep up with these holidays.
Even though I always grouse about the retailers hauling out the Christmas stuff earlier and earlier each year, perhaps they were doing this just for me! Maybe if I didn’t blow off all these early holiday offerings as crass commercialism, I wouldn’t be standing in lines in department stores on December 21st huffing and puffing with anxiety and plotting the death of the sales clerk who always seems to be using the cash register for the very first time.
This year I am determined to get things done so I can actually HAVE a Christmas. I have always had such contempt for people who boast in mid-October that they have completed their Christmas shopping. Ugh...
In 2012, I am committed to being more organized and I am aiming to get most of my Christmas shopping done in November. This is going to be my “get it all together” month. I will ask for lists from my loved ones this weekend and that will be it. I am going to do it this year. Don’t laugh! I am woman, hear me roar.
No more stressing out. No more wandering around the mall doing what I call “zombie shopping”. That’s when you don’t know what to buy and you are so tired from looking you wouldn’t know a good gift if it hit you over the head. No more running around at the last minute. And absolutely no more wrapping packages with the 11 o’clock News Team. This year will be different!
How wonderful it would be to spend December just doing Christmas things. I want to bake things, I want to go caroling. I want to take my children and grandchildren to see The Nutcracker (even though they hate it). That’s the biggest reason for taking them, by the way. They will squawk endlessly about enduring a two-hour ballet with dancing mice NOW, but someday when I am dead they will tearfully tell beautiful stories about how I took them to The Nutcracker at Christmas. I will sit on my cloud in heaven and smile.
Although I am fairly well known for putting the “fun” in dysfunctional, I am quite sure my family and friends would enjoy not having Psycho Fifi around this year. I know I will love not being her. November is MY month to change the way I do things.
Why don't you join me in my effort to get it all out of the way this month? I know Thanksgiving will be even more enjoyable if I am not stressing about Christmas. Are you in?
And when my friends and family ask what I want for Christmas, I will make it easy as I have already carefully thought it out... I want crazy wild gypsy earrings and world peace. Come to think of it, I don't really need the earrings. I am a crazy wild gypsy already. And as for world peace? Yes, please.
