I am sitting in my living room with a lovely view of the Christmas tree, lights glowing softly in the morning dim, and I am still feeling distinctly grinchy. What is my DEAL. We could easily blame my lack of spirit on the fact that I have to go to Costco today, the week before Christmas, because I have somehow allowed our toilet paper and paper towel supplies to dwindle to dangerous levels. Or perhaps we could point to the fact that my daughter’s school just informed us that winter vacation will begin a day early, so agitated are they about rising numbers of Covid cases in the system. And, worse, that the kids will be coming home with devices just in case we cannot return in January as planned, and need to remain remote for a while. Cue wailing and rending of garments. Of course of course I am glad that Carla’s school continues to take this pandemic so seriously. Of course I would rather keep her home than expose her unnecessarily. Of course I want to be a good community member. Of course we will be fine if we need to do a few days or weeks of remote learning. But. Anguished scream.
However, even before this very unwelcome announcement from the school administration, I had been feeling distinctly dispirited. Christmas music irritates me, unless it is a very specific and somehow highly elusive style of old-fashioned instrumental Christmas carols. I have wrapped maybe a dozen presents and am already SICK OF IT. I tried to read two separate Christmas books, both which came highly recommended by people I trust, and neither of them were a good fit for my reading style/current mood. We have NO SNOW, just wind, wind, and more wind. We finally put up the tree and the Christmas decorations, and somehow even they seem lackluster, even though they are the exact same decorations I put out every year.
I feel a certain level of frustration (with myself) over this lack of holiday spirit. Also, woe. I LOVE Christmastime, and I feel it slipping away from me, and I’m concerned that this is the last Christmas that will be Magical for Carla, which makes me want to swaddle myself in Holiday Joy that is on a high, dark shelf somewhere I cannot reach. Fretting about it does not help, of course; I cannot GUILT-TRIP Christmas spirit upon myself. I thought I could coax it to me with gentleness and patience, like getting a skittish cat to come up from under the couch, but so far that hasn’t worked either.
The only Coping Thought that is working for me (currently) is that Christmas Spirit isn’t MANDATORY. There’s no law. I have done my best to do the things that will make Christmas happy for my loved ones and I can finish the last tasks I need to do but there is no law that I have to be cheery or feel awed by the season or cherish every moment. It’s disappointing, but trying to FORCE spirit upon myself is not working, so I am trying to let go. Maybe it will find me if I stop looking so hard.
In the meantime, here are a few utterly mundane updates on a variety of things.
Christmas Tree Skirt: I ordered the Christmas tree skirt I loved from my recent post and it has since arrived. I like it even more in person than online. The fabric is kind of stiff and heavier than I anticipated, which I quite like; I don’t think presents are going to crumple it or displace it. (It did get some stubborn folds in it during shipping, but I think time and gift gravity will smooth those out.) I LOVE the red version, but I kind of wish I had the burlap one, too. Maybe someday I will be the type of person with two trees and I can get the burlap one as well.
Holiday To-Do List: Just two weeks ago, I was in a bit of a panic over all I had yet to complete. Here is a list of what I had yet to do:
I can make a nice tidy list of things we have yet to complete:
Address and mail holiday cards
Finalize purchases for Carla’s “rilly big box full of all craft stuf”
Wrap and mail gifts for sister-in-law and niece
Mail caramels to my brother and sister-in-law whenever they get here
Buy the final gift for my mother
Buy the final gift for my father
Buy all gifts for my mother-in-law
Buy all gifts for my father-in-law (including birthday gifts)
Buy all gifts for my aunt-in-law
And now, I have completed every single item on that list. Plus, I have wraps all the gifts and packed them in boxes and put them in the mail. All that’s left is to wrap gifts for my family (and on behalf of Santa). A good reminder that there is usually plenty of time to do what needs to be done. Also that panicking publicly on one’s blog is quite useful for stimulating action.
Box Office Breakdown: When last I showed you a photo of my office, it was cram-jammed with boxes. I was saving the boxes so that I had The Perfect Size for the gifts I needed to send to relatives. This was kind of ridiculous, considering I only needed four boxes. But they are gone now! Broken down (by my husband!!!) and recycled!
My office is usable once again. Hooray!
Coffee Experiment: I ended my experimentation with drinking coffee after two days of drinking coffee. Coffee is not for me. Instead, I have been making matcha lattes with occasional forays into Christmas tea, which is a very gentle, fragrant way to enable the Christmas spirit to enter my soul should it choose to.
I just ordered a box of Stash Christmas in Paris tea to try in addition to the Twinings. “Luxurious chocolatey flavor paired with lavender and mint”? Yes, please!
Anniversary Dinner: My husband and I decided that we just weren’t comfortable eating in a restaurant quite yet, so we got “fancy takeout” (this means I ordered short ribs and my husband ordered chicken Milanese and we also each got an appetizer, instead of getting our usual pizza/Indian food/Thai food takeout) and took it back to our house where we watched football while Carla was at a birthday party. It was a surprisingly fun, lovely way to spend our anniversary. Plus, we got (“got”) to wait in the lobby of the restaurant for a few minutes while the kitchen prepared our order, and observed all the unmasked people coming in to dine there, and listened to how snarky and unpleasant the three (three!) hostesses were, and witnessed a disgruntled diner gripe to one of the hostesses about how he’d been waiting at a table for fifteen minutes and no one had come to serve him yet, even though someone had waited on a table that was just seated. It gave me just enough taste of Being In A Restaurant to realize that I have no desire to be in a restaurant perhaps ever again.
Also, I got flowers!!! (And chocolates. They are both from my mother-in-law, but that doesn’t dampen their beauty.)
Dog Gifting: Carla would like to make special holiday treats for all her neighborhood dog friends. I have googled “homemade dog treats” several times, which turns up lots of recipes, many of which include peanut butter. But then some websites say that dogs can be allergic to peanut butter. Or gluten. I feel like we would KNOW if any of the dogs on our gift list had special needs. That seems like the kind of information that comes up, when you are a dog person. Right? But maybe not? I don’t know. My best guess is that we should just pick a recipe, make it, distribute the dog treats, and then the owners will decide if they want to feed it to their dogs or throw them away. It definitely seems like the perfect “It’s the thought that counts” kind of situation. But I don’t know! I’m not a dog owner!
If you are a dog owner/expert, would you allow your dog to eat a treat containing peanut butter? Perhaps I should stick to a different “flavoring.” But the other flavors include things like banana and sweet potato. Do dogs like bananas and sweet potatoes? Am I overthinking this? I am overthinking this.
Awkwardness: Thank you for your support and kindness in response to my post about being the most awkward human on the planet. I am mostly over it. I have since spoken to several of the moms involved in my big foot-in-mouth incident the other day, and they seemed friendly and normal and the subject never even came up.
What are you up to, this last weekend before Christmas? If you also have to brave Costco, you have my solidarity and sympathy.
I am feeling quite grinchy this year too and I personally blame the rest of the world for that so feel free to join me.
I love your Christmas tree skirt. Excellent choice, it looks very nice. The whole tree looks great, in fact.
My to do list mostly involves wrapping and I am supposed to be doing that today but I have not wrapped ONE THING yet and it is already NOON.
I also keep all the boxes until I am done mailing, which I finished earlier this week, and it is really great to have them out of here. I had mostly been keeping them in my hallway outside my bedroom, except for the rare times someone else was in our house and I was tired of hauling them around or tripping over them.
My dog used to eat bugs and poop if we didn’t stop her so I’d be happy with any kind of homemade dog treat.
LOL your dog.
I haven’t wrapped anything either. It will happen, at some point, I suppose.
“Cue wailing and rending of garments” – I’ll have to try that one. I often refer to my children as going through periods of “wailing and gnashing of teeth,” but rending garments they have left to try.
I agree on the Christmas spirit. Can I offer a thought – maybe we’re all just trying too hard. We’re expecting a lot of ourselves and Christmas. Maybe, just like Instagram shows us the best (and unrealistic) side of lives…maybe Hallmark and Norman Rockwell are giving us an unrealistic expectation of Christmas.
Also, this pandemic is hard. I’m writing about this tomorrow – I feel immense guilt complaining about how heavy and hard it feels because #perspective – I have had enormous privileges throughout – no loved one has been sick, no jobs have been lost. And yet…it still feels very heavy and very exhausting. Our kiddos are getting let out two days early and have already had two days tacked on to their Christmas Break and the messaging also implied there is a decent chance they may extend this break further. We will survive it, of course, if it happens, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel hard and exhausting to even contemplate a return to online learning in the dead of winter with two spirited kids and jobs for the adults in the house to juggle…
Don’t be too hard on yourself! I can assure you it’s not just you finding it a bit tougher than usual to get in the spirit.
I am both relieved and sad to hear that others are experiencing this same lack of spirit.
Christmas is hard this year…I would argue even harder than last year. I completely empathize with the feeling that the best part of the year is slipping by and feels just strangely inaccessible. Where dog treats are concerned, mine loves peanut butter and sweet potato and pumpkin and pretty much anything that’s not his dry dog food so I say let Carla make whatever she wants and know that you’re making some doggies very happy.
Pumpkin! Yes, that is another ingredient I have seen a lot in dog treat recipes!
The tree skirt looks amazing! Nice choice.
I think, at this point, you might have to admit that this year you are not feeling Christmas-y. And that’s okay! Just go through the motions and try again next year! (I hesitate to say things will be better next year because I thought that LAST YEAR and look how well that worked out.)
My dog is allergic to everything, but you do learn that if you meet her almost instantly because she can only be allowed treats we provide. She cannot have peanut butter (although most dogs can and they LOVE it), but she can have sweet potatoes (which she LOVES, but many dogs are meh about). She also loves pumpkin, which seems to go over well with many other dogs. If someone gave me homemade treats with an ingredient list, I would allow my dog to eat it. But if no such list existed, I would definitely be so PLEASED someone thought of my dog and definitely gush about how thoughtful the present was, but I would not let her eat it. (I also feel this way about homemade good for humans – if you send me homemade cookies or granola without an ingredient list, I will almost certainly not eat it.) I have a lot of thoughts about dog gifting, but I say no matter what the circumstances, people will be charmed by a gift for their pet from Carla.
This is very useful, and I will print up a little ingredients list we can tape to the… bags? How are we going to convey these treats?
I am a dog person and can maybe offer a little context on the mixed peanut butter recommendations. Peanut butter itself is great and loved by dogs; the warning messages are because some peanut butters have an articial sweetener in it called xylitol which is toxic to dogs. As long as you make sure you use one without that, it’s great.
THAT IS A GREAT POINT THANK YOU.
Your tree and your new tree skirt are so lovely! I’m now eyeballing my tree skirt and finding it wanting. I love the peek into your office – you “style” your bookshelves the same way I do; with books! The flowers are gorgeous! I’m glad you and your husband had a lovely anniversary and dinner. I am not a dog person, but I would say the treats (whether the owner’s give them to their dog or not) are a very sweet and thoughtful gift from Carla (and you) that the neighbors will cherish the intent behind the gift. And yes, panic put out into the universe is the excellent kick in the pants that get us moving.
Christmas spirit, I think, comes in quietly when we aren’t looking because we are just so busy buying and wrapping gifts, decorating, baking and what have you. So, I think if it shows up AFTER Christmas – in that quiet time between Christmas and the New Year – that is perfectly fine and acceptable.
This is heartening. Hopefully Christmas will come in quietly for me. 🙂
As a dog owner, yes, I would feed treats made with peanut butter to my dog. He also really likes brussel sprouts and happily chowed down on the cut ends of collard greens tonight,. He also hoovers just out of stepping range when you are chopping broccoli because he might get a bit of stem. He loves banana and pumpkin and apples and carrots.
One of his absolute favorite homemade treats is made from peanut butter, flour, an egg, and spent grain from when my husband brews beer. Super easy to make if you have a source of spent grain. (I have pondered asking local breweries, but I always seem to have a bag in the freezer, so doesn’t seem worth asking for more. And you have to make sure that they did NOT use hops with the grain, but added the hops after, since hops can be Very Not Good for dogs.)
I always give an ingredient list when I hand over goodies to people who might have allergies. Which basically means everyone who I have not specifically asked “do you have any allergies?”
I am not feeling the christmas spirit this year either. I have decided that is ok and I am not going to force it. I am going to enjoy whatever I can and go from there. And if nothing else, things WILL be better after Dec 21 because the days will start to get longer again.
Yes! Longer days! That will help immensely!
I will tell you this, if a neighbour girl made homemade treats for Barkley, I would be so touched and moved that it would not matter in the least what they were made from. This is the ultimate in the “thought that counts” because the human will be blown away by this kindness, and the dog will have literally no idea. So if it’s something the dog can’t have, the owner can just deal with it in her own way. That said, Barkley LOVES peanut butter. We give him a little in his Kong every night as a bedtime treat and always have. He also will eat anything that’s food, with the exception of raw mushrooms, as he can’t seem to grip them for some reason, and lettuce. Literally, anything that is food he loves, and if “Barbara” is the kind of dog I think she is, she will also love anything that is food. Truly, just go with the easiest recipe, and all the dog owners will be so charmed and happy.
I went to Costco this week and I was all geared up for a nightmare, and it was fine. More than fine! I was in and out in half an hour, with no issues. I don’t know what I did to deserve that but I’ll take it.
OH MY GOD I AM SORRY ABOUT THE SCHOOL THING. I truly hope it doesn’t come to this, again, what, why, how did this happen. Also, I am supposed to go to a RESTAURANT for breakfast tomorrow to meet my friend for her birthday, who I haven’t seen since her birthday in 2019, and I have to tell you, I’m super nervous. We shall see how it goes.
Yay for your to-do lists getting done, and your lovely office, and those teas! The boys are done school as of 1:10 this afternoon, so it will be nice to have a break. We have Christmas movies to watch and a puzzle to finish and I have a ton of books to read!
My Costco wasn’t too terrible either! Small wonders!
Your office is lovely! And that Christmas in Paris tea sounds yummy, even though I don’t really like tea! (Do you drink it with milk?) I say definitely DO the doggie treats, that is so cute!
I’m feeling slightly grinchy myself, but can’t write about it on my own blog since it involves a trip to see my MIL. :/ We’re driving down Thursday morning, and planning to drive back Christmas Day, after opening gifts and having some kind of a brunch. This is not ideal and we know it, but we would rather not brave terrible Atlanta traffic on the weekend day AFTER Christmas. And the cat-sitter can’t come on Christmas Day (understandably). And husband has to work Monday the 27th. But Kate (13) thinks we are imbeciles or worse, JERKS, for creating this schedule. “What kind of CHRISTMAS is that?!” she laments, as if we are personally creating a gift of hell FOR HER. …so yeah, that has me in a mood.
Otherwise I am feeling all the “invisible work that doesn’t get appreciated” vibes this year, moreso than usual. I have an itchy rash on my neck that I can’t figure out. And YES! Christmas music is bugging me this year! What is with that!?
I have a couple of get-togethers with friends planned, and I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow, and I hope those things will HELP. Until then, SOLIDARITY.
I am so sorry to hear about the MIL trip and its effects on your family. UGH. And a haircut is a great idea. I got my hair cut last week and it has been a definite mood booster (if not a Christmas spirit lifter).
The other day I had the internal wailing thought “AND HOW MANY CHRISTMASES DO I EVEN HAVE LEFT???,” which I hope communicates that I am in that same zone of Not Quite Nailing the Christmas Spirit this year.
I love what Nicole said about the human will be blown away by the kindness and the dog will have literally no idea. I would list the ingredients on the bag, and then I would use that as my Coping Thought.
I think you will understand that I read your “How many christmases do I even have left?!” with more glee than perhaps the sentiment merits. It really is comforting to find that so many others are feeling the same lackluster way.
I simply don’t have the words to express how much I have come to appreciate you and your community. And Swistle and her community too!
I’m older than most of your readers, and would consider adopting some of you, but then it would be expected that I tune into your wants and needs and those of your extended families, and that just seems like it would require a lot more concentration than I am up to. (Look! Something shiny!)
As per the dog treats super sweet idea, I would print off ingredients list on the computer on a 3X5 card, let Carla decorate the other side, hole punch the corner and tie it on a bag with ribbon, and call it good. So important to reinforce Carla’s generous spirit. You are a wonderful Mom.
This is so lovely and so kind! ❤️
I am concerned about possible school closures, too. The county next to ours closed down suddenly and will be remote for at least a month. Remote school is NOT a good fit for North and Noah really bloomed this semester back at school, so though I miss him when he’s gone I really want him to go back in January.
I’m sorry you’re not in the Christmas spirit this year! I think, like NGS said, it just may be time to accept you may be a little less Christmassy this year – and that’s OK! I think we were all expecting 2021 to be better than 2020 and we ARE in a better spot (vaccinated!) but things are still pretty weird and now there’s a new variant to worry about.
I love the dog treats idea! Most dogs LOVE peanut butter (it’s the best way to give them medication, haha) so I think most dog owners would be touched, and those who have a dog with allergies would still be really happy to receive something from Carla. <3
I love Christmas, but it’s been truly hard to get into the Christmas spirit and now we’re a couple of days away from the “big day” and I am like “WHAT?? This is going too fast, I am not ready. I haven’t even watched a Christmas movie or had a hot chocolate for crying out loud”. Sigh.
We’re making the best of it. We go through the motions and hope the spirit will show up at least briefly. That’s all we can hope for.