A Rambling Post About Letting Go at Christmas

I'm finally over that horrible lingering cold/flu thing. I'd been staving it off with vitamins and Airborne for a few days, and when I let up and didn't stand strong in the battle, the illness won out, making me feel like I either had an exceptionally long bout or had two separate incidences of it.

Of course it cycled through my family.

And then the kids I babysit for.

Which made the past week or so a real joy because as every mom knows, there is no getting anything done when little ones are sick.

So Friday morning, I finally managed to get on top of the dishes and laundry, and even had dinner in the crock pot by 8 am.

One good side effect of the kids being sick is that their little bodies needed more sleep than usual, and they all took a very long nap at the same time, which allowed me a window of time in which to get a great deal done. I wrapped gifts, got packages ready to mail, and was also able to get started on my Christmas cards.

That meal I threw together is one of those that makes it seem as though I had been slaving all day over a hot stove, the smells are so mouth-watering. Judah even followed his nose to the kitchen around noon, asking, "What awe you makin', mama? It smeaow good!"

I made such a meal mostly to entice my MIL over to the house to take our annual Christmas card picture because I wanted my family to have a good meal that said, "I love you". They did all seem to thoroughly enjoy it.

After the dinner, we all got dressed in our matching forest green sweaters (we can't get away from that color, I tell you!) and assembled in front of our tree, my MIL acting as our photog.

183 total shots Hours later, we wrapped things up because my poor MIL was about to fall over from exhaustion, Judah was no longer cooperating and my camera was acting up. It got locked onto some setting that I had never seen before, and I couldn't seem to get to stop...and was one that made it very prone to blurriness.

The kids were cooperative for quite a while. Real troopers. However, after the fifth or sixth time I went to load the pictures onto the computer to view them at a larger size, we did have to resort to bribery.

The candy and Star Wars figurines were worth it, though. I was in a mad rush to get those photos done that night because normally my Christmas cards would be sitting on people's mantels by now. Hard as I tried to get everything done early, I got off to a woefully late start with such things this year.

Which is silly, considering I have very little else going on around here lately. (Heavy sarcasm intended.)

I was actually very proud of myself for learning to "let go".

I 'let go' of doing the big batches of Gingerbread snowflake cookies with piped icing coated in sugary 'glitter' decorating their tops in time for Christmas package mail outs.

I 'let go' of our Awana Club's participation in the local Christmas Parade (accidentally missed the deadline on that one, woopsie).

I 'let go' of my dream of building, priming, painting and decorating my fireplace mantel in time for our Christmas picture.

I also 'let go' of my desire to make tri-fold Christmas card marvels that give a nod to my graphic design background.

Yup, this year I returned to the whole dash-to-Costco-at-the-last-minute-to-have-duplicate-photos-made routine.

To put in the bargain photo frame cards I got for 75% off after Christmas last year. The sum total for the cost of my cards amounted to $15 (not including postage, candy and Star Wars figurines).

Quite a significant savings, the only hitch in my plans being that the cards are a glossy paper that stamping ink doesn't dry very quickly on, which is going to require another step involving tissue paper inserts inside the cards to keep the ink from smearing.

Because of course I couldn't just send the cards as is...I had to put my own personal touch on them. (Why can't I just leave well enough alone?!)

I did actually learn something wonderful in the process of our belated photo session this year:

Even when I think there isn't one suitable picture out of 183 shots, I will at 1 AM finally realize that it's just not worth a round two the next morning to get the perfect photo I will wake up early, look them over with fresh eyes and narrow it down to five prospective shots.

And will actually laugh at the outtakes, even if I did spend an inordinate amount of time growling at pleading with the kids behind my pasted on smile to "cooperate and look like a happy family!" and "smile like you mean it!"







Please, Lord, let it be over soon!

My family is nothing if not longsuffering.

Also, after several years with that same camera, I just learned that I can put a blank photo card into the reader on my computer and copy an edited picture file back to it, and take only the teensy tiny card into Costco with me to get it printed...proving that old dogs can learn fabulous new tricks.

And though the only photo that I deemed suitable out of our entire photog session had one son looking a bit stoic instead of smiling (probably actually plotting as to how he could weasel the StarWars figurines out of us now that I think about it...), I 'let go' of the temptation to doctor it up on the computer.

In spite of all this 'letting go', I fear my OCD perfectionism frustration with ongoing unfinished projects around this house are going to make me stark-raving mad.

I probably already LOOK that way seeing as my last trip to the butcher hairdresser left me with a 'do' that resembles barn-floor straw and feathers sticking up all askew on the back of my head. Why not throw in a few wild-eyed rants and out-of-nowhere hysterical laughter into the mix, too, to really make the season bright?

*sigh* I'm thinking it might be time to grow it out long enough to be able to put into a more respectable, comfortable pony tail once again. (I'll cross the bridge of whether or not an old gray-headed woman should still be wearing pony tails whenever I retire.)

I feel a little like a cattle rancher wrangling an unwieldy beast to the ground just trying to get everything done by this coming Friday. That's our self-imposed deadline to have everything taken care of due to the Youth Group Christmas party were having here, and after that we really want to spend the last few days before Christmas focusing on The One the occastrion celebrates.

My list is long.

My hands are chapped and crackly.

The house is cold today because we finally got some cold weather and we hadn't yet turned on the heat. It was snowing earlier, which will probably finally bring an end to the profusion of roses we still had blooming as of three days ago.



However, the kids are all snugly tucked in for early naps today, the house is blessedly quiet, and Lord willing I think I may just be able to get a few things done while they're sleeping.