The Holiday Season Approaches

It is already September. While this year felt like it lasted an eternity (and still kind of feels that way), it also sort of flew by. People are preparing their Halloween decorations and pumpkin spice/apple cider candles, digging out their hoodies and stocking up on their s’mores ingredients.

For my part, I feel like I’m doing these things just because that is what is expected. I made Halloween crafts, I’ll pull out the other decorations soon. I don’t actually care about pumpkin spice (yes, really). I do look forward to more hoodies and blankets though. Otherwise…I guess I just don’t care. Usually by now, I am chomping at the bit for Halloween to get here and leave so I can start on Christmas décor. Anyone who knows me knows that every year, since the kids were little, we would watch the Polar Express, one of my favorites. Christmas was always my FAVORITE holiday. I loved everything about the season. The giving nature of people, the singing, the lights, the laughter, just the feeling of hope and warmth I would feel the whole season. When I was younger, I would start preparing for Christmas in June. But this year? I just don’t care.

I try to carefully plan every Christmas. When the kids were little, I would work hard to get what they wanted. I would take time to wrap and label and take all of the pictures. As they got older and wanted less (but perhaps more expensive) stuff, I tried to be creative in the way I would wrap and present their gifts. Each year everything has become harder and harder and this year…I just don’t have the energy to deal with it. I don’t want to fight with people to give me ideas on what they want, who then often offer snarky comments when I try to guess. I don’t want to gift people who expect gifts but give nothing in return (not even a little bit of their time). I don’t want to carefully plan everything that will absolutely not go the way I hoped. I don’t want to sit around waiting for schedules to align or people to care enough to watch a Christmas movie or two with me. I don’t want to drag out decorations, because they will just serve to remind me of how much it hurts to not care about Christmas, and inevitably, every year, several people would criticize me for wanting to bring them out too early anyway.

This year has truly been a suck-fest. For everyone, not just me. I can think of a million different reasons not to celebrate this year, and right now, admittedly, I am letting every one of those reasons win. It is devastating to me that the people around me and the events of the past several years could ruin something that used to be so, so vital to me. But here we are.

Comments

Declutter the House (and Mind)

Wow - it has been a LONG time since I've posted here. Maybe that's a good thing, ha! I'm posting now because I am setting a challenge for myself. It's the 30 day Minimalism Challenge. If you have never heard of it, the rules are simple. Basically you get rid of stuff every single day for 30 days. The usual rules are 1 thing on the 1st, 2 things on the 2nd, 3 things on the 3rd and so on until you have gotten rid of 465 things. I tried it once before and didn't make it very far, maybe day 5. I found that growing number to be kind of intimidating so I am going to change it up a little bit. I am going to write down numbers 1-30 on pieces of paper and randomly pick one every day. That will be the number of items I get rid of that day. The idea is these items must be OUT of your house by midnight each day. In my case, I'm sure that the husband's car trunk will hold quite a collection for a weekly donation run since I don't have time to make that run d...

The Final Countdown

Well, I did it. I made it through the month of purging. 465 items officially, but since I didn't count most of the stuff I threw away, I would estimate closer to 575-600 things. There are a number of things I have learned in the process. First, I have kept a lot of stupid things. I came across so many items that genuinely baffled me as to why I kept them. They had no use, no sentimental value, no reason at all for keeping them, and yet I did. I would say, even the spaces I went through, I could probably get rid of more, but I am happy with where they are at for now. Once I go through the other spaces in my house, I am sure I will circle back around and get rid of even more. Second, it was much easier getting rid of things than I thought it would be. I have purged items before, but never in such quantities. I attempted this challenge once before but I don't think I even made it through the first week. Excuses and time just got the best of ...

Writing

When I was younger, I always wanted to write. I kept notebooks and notebooks of poetry and I was meticulous about them. If I had to cross out a word or, God-forbid, tear out a page – I had to start over with a whole new notebook. I thought for sure that someday, I would write books. I loved to read them, couldn’t get enough, why couldn’t I write them too? If only it were that easy! I started many fiction stories and often, no later than page 10, I would realize exactly how tedious writing a book is. I just did not have the patience for it. When I read a book, I read quickly. It’s something I have always done, because I am impatient. I want to know the end-game right now. I taught myself to skim (thanks Stephen King for putting SO much detail into a book that I learned this little trick). Don’t get me wrong. I READ everything, but I process it a second later. It’s like driving a car. When you drive, you don’t (or should...

And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Search This Blog