I’m so busy. I’m so busy. Are you SO BUSY?? It feels like one thing after another, and never done. But I know we are near the point where suddenly Everything Will Be Done. Ideally without any of us having murdered the spouse relaxing in the next room.
There are holiday things I like to do (festive baking, and distribution of same; holiday festivities with friends; doing a Christmas puzzle; leisurely Christmas shopping in stores; reading Christmas books by the Christmas tree; tipsily watching the movie A Bad Moms Christmas; writing gift-idea posts; thinking in a more leisurely way about presents; contemplating/implementing a wider spreading of festive feelings/treats/donations to people/businesses outside our own household; going to holiday fairs / special Christmas-light displays / holiday performances) that didn’t get done this year because I was busy doing Everything That Literally Had To Be Done; I wonder if next year there are some adjustments that could be made so that people who are 99% enjoying the holiday, and doing every blessed thing they want to do, while jovially complaining about the ONE PERSON they have to shop/wrap for and the ONE SINGLE THING they do to contribute, could be better balanced with those of us 10% enjoying the holiday and doing 99% of the work and missing out on many of the things we want to do.
i am not saying that i’m *enjoying* the holiday, but i am saying that my spouse is doing about 70% of the work this year and i do *not* hate it.
I wrote out the grocery list but then I felt faint :)
Husband went. It took him 4 hours with the lines.
I feel much better.
It’s Christmas Eve here in Singapore and my husband left by himself to go shop for a handful of gifts, like every year.
We are hosting some Navy members who are deployed to our city for Christmas dinner tomorrow, and yes, I’m having it catered, but also today I am cleaning and helping a middle schooler bake desserts, and prepping for tonight’s dinner, and making sausage to go in a breakfast casserole said spouse casually mentioned would be good for tomorrow but they don’t sell breakfast sausage here so I shopped and planned and prepped and cleaned.
Also, I went back to work for the first time since I had my oldest (almost 16 years!) on December 16. Poor planning? Yes. But now we are both working full time and I’m still finding time to host three men I don’t know on top of all the other Christmas magic I created.
My micro aggression was signing all the tags “to kid from mom” and leaving dad off of 90% of them.
Me (text to BIL): We had several boxes delivered to FIL’s house today. We’ll wrap them when we get there.
BIL (text): If one of them is a rice maker, it has already been used!
Me (in person at FIL’s house): oh, you weren’t joking. wait, would you guys use a rice cooker? I got that one for (hubby).
BIL: oh, yeah, we’d use one. We’re going to make XYZ in it for Christmas.
***
My plan — My SIL takes over FIL’s kitchen at holidays, so I sent a rice cooker my hubby wanted for Xmas (and a 5 lb bag of rice!) to FIL’s house so I could make rice balls for my kids without getting in the way. A planned upgrade to our rice cooker. My reality — we bought my BIL & SIL a $200 appliance and they are making something my kids won’t eat.
Me (in the car to the AirBnB): “um, so your brother thinks that all presents delivered to someone else’s house, a house where multiple families are gathering this year, are for them?”
Hubby: (laughing) Clearly.
I love these crazy people and this is absurd. I hope my other BIL/SIL don’t notice they got less expensive gifts this year.
Did they use the rice too?
Are they opening everything to pick and choose what was ‘clearly’ bought for them and only them?
Oopsie, we used it, it’s ours now!
Madness.
Well, this year was a mixed bag. I got some volunteer work in, but it took longer than I thought and cost me a window to write cards. I’ll do some on the weekend and whatever I can mail by NYEve is what I can do. I shop very early, so gifts and wrapping have been done for a while. It’s the baking that really got me. I only baked one thing ahead for the freezer, and every day this week has had me fitting some kind of cookie into the day. I did as much as you could of making doughs up at once and chilling to bake another day. I tried one new thing, but I think I’m going to quit baking another. I bake a lot of favorites to share. I didn’t get to spritz cookies yet, but I will tomorrow night and they just won’t get shared as widely. I’m trying not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I’ve had several social opportunities these last 2 weeks on top of all of this. I regret nothing. My community and I need each other even more right now. Best of all, there was a new twig on the family tree this summer, so I will get to visit and cuddle a smooshy 5 month old baby, which is good stuff indeed. 🎄