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 to Christmas Eve dinner, 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 in the stage where I keep thinking of and buying Just One More Little Thing for someone whose list looks skimpy. I used to fight this impulse, but it is too inherent. What I do now, instead, is that if I DO overdo it (sometimes my impulses are CORRECT and I have NOT overdone it but have instead SAVED CHRISTMAS), I put the extra things aside for birthdays: they all have birthdays in the first half of the year, so this works well.

For the first time in my life, I bought scratch tickets. I think it’s a fun gift idea, and some of my coworkers give them out as co-worker gifts and I like that, but I was nervous! But it was just a vending machine in the grocery store, no big deal. The only thing I didn’t like is that BOTH TIMES I used the machine, another customer was waiting for a turn WAY TOO CLOSE and with a vibe as if I were stealing HER tickets. I wished for a way to buy multiples, because in one case I was buying twenty-five $1 tickets for co-workers, and it seemed like the only way to do that was to push the button twenty-five times. I then went back the next day to buy those same $1 tickets for the kids (it is hard to find good fun stocking stuffers for older kids), and a $5 ticket each for Paul’s stocking and mine. Very fun.

Wait: that is an inadvertent lie, about never buying scratch tickets before. Long, long ago, when I was just out of college and working at a grocery store bakery, there was a trend among my co-workers of buying $2 scratch tickets. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was something like we all bought a ticket on payday, and we all scratched them in the break room—so when you were taking your break, you’d stop at the customer service counter and get your ticket, and then you’d scratch it off to the audience of whoever else was taking a break, and they would tell you what they’d gotten. We liked the $2 tickets because they pretty often paid out $5; some of us would keep the winnings and others of us would extend the fun by using it to buy a $5 ticket. But that was easier, because other people told me how to do it, and I was buying it from someone I knew at the desk. This week was the first time SINCE then, and I didn’t remember how to do it or how it worked, and also it worked differently. Well, that was not a very interesting story.

Paul’s office closes for the eight days of Christmas and New Year’s, and everyone gets paid for that time. My library closes for a half-day on Christmas Eve, and is closed Christmas Day, and we don’t get paid for the time, and we go right back to work on the 26th. And all the kids have lots of days off: Henry doesn’t go back to high school until January 2nd, and the twins don’t go back to college until mid-January. It is going to be a little galling to leave them all lounging about as I go back to work. Or maybe it will be glorious to get out of the house, get paid to work on a day when hardly any patrons come in, and spend most of the shift chatting with co-workers about Christmas and eating the treats everyone brings in. I do wish we had the 26th off, though. That’s one of my favorite days, when all the work of Christmas is over and you can lounge around and enjoy the leftovers and gifts and treats.

I keep meaning to tell you about the pelvic-floor therapy and it keeps being a lower priority than other things I want to talk about, but let me tell you one thing. If you have trouble with suddenly feeling like you HAVE TO PEE (like when you come home, or when you are in/near a bathroom), even when you don’t actually need to pee all that badly, a trick to make the feeling go away is to stand up on tip-toes, then drop your heels back down, then back on tiptoes again, several times; the muscles you use for that are apparently connected to the muscles of the pelvic floor. Another trick is to speak to your bladder firmly but compassionately, and say “You are okay. You can wait a few minutes. I promise we will pee soon.” Perhaps you would like to say that in your head, and not out loud. Another trick is to WALK A DIFFERENT DIRECTION than you normally do. Like if you always come home and go hang up your coat and then go plug in your phone, and this makes your bladder think WE ARE HOME AND MUST PEE RIGHT NOW, instead go the opposite way into a different room; you would think this was too silly to even try, but I tried it and it actually worked.

In some ways the page-a-day calendar is even more challenging than the wall calendar, because so many wall calendars are MADE to be pretty and restful. Whereas day-to-day calendars, with 353-354 more images to come up with in a year, tend to be a little more feisty. But this year I don’t want feisty, I don’t want funny; I might want art, beauty, science. I think I could tolerate cute, maybe even MILDLY funny? But I don’t want the Pusheen calendar again, even though I liked it this year. Too sweet and sunshiney.

I bought this one:

(image from Amazon.com)

The MET Art of Flowers. My hope is that it will be peaceful and pretty, and give the feeling of perspective that art can sometimes give, while also showing me every day what day it is, and giving me a decorative pile of scrap paper.

But I also just ordered this one:

(image from Amazon.com)

Worry Lines: Full of Hope and Potato day-to-day calendar. I do not need two page-a-day calendars, but this is not the first time I’ve ended up with two. And if this one is TOO hopeful or TOO uplifting, there is a cart at my workplace where we can put things we don’t want and someone else will take them; that’s what I did when the Effin’ Birds calendar turned out more aggressive than I’d thought it would be. But what happened was I saw this image (apparently from Instagram, which I don’t use and so I’m not sure how to link properly, but it’s apparently by @worry__lines if I’ve done that right, and please do let me know if I haven’t), and found it compelling enough that I went right to my cart and bought the calendar:

That is the level of funny/hopeful I find useful.

I will show you some other calendars I considered, in case you are still questing.

(image from Amazon.com)

(image from Amazon.com)

Cat page-a-day calendar. 365 Cats page-a-day calendar. I can look at a picture of a cat each day without feeling as if everything’s supposed to be fine when it’s not.

(image from Amazon.com)

(image from Amazon.com)

The MET Art: 365 Days of Masterpieces day-to-day calendar. Art page-a-day calendar. I find art mildly uplifting but without pressure to sustain that lift. Artists are CLASSICALLY tormented and miserable.

(image from Amazon.com)

Shoes page-a-day calendar. I have had this calendar before, and it was pleasing and fun. I wear sneakers, but I appreciate a fancy shoe.

(image from Amazon.com)

Mister Rogers day-at-a-time calendar. I am exactly the right age to get teary and sentimental about Mister Rogers, and it feels like we could use his sweetness, and I appreciate the way they’ve called this a “day-at-a-time” calendar. But I looked at the sample pages, and I found they did not hit the right note for me right now.

(image from Amazon.com)

Cartoons from The New Yorker day-to-day calendar. New Yorker cartoons don’t tend to be lol funny, they’re more quietly wry. I thought I might be able to enjoy quietly wry. But I decided against it, because I think it’s also possible I’d find it annoying and irrelevant.

(image from Amazon.com)

Paper Airplane fold-a-day calendar. Not for me, but for Paul or one of the kids. Paul has had this calendar before, and said he liked it the first time but didn’t think he wanted to do it again, but I’m still considering it for Rob and for Edward, who both have terrible skimpy wish lists.

(image from Amazon.com)

Spanish Phrasebook day-to-day calendar. And while writing this post, I remembered how keen Henry has been on his Spanish class this semester, so I ordered him this for Christmas. I like that it’s focused around phrases needed for travel, instead of just word-a-day.

I am starting to feel somewhat more accomplished, in re Christmas preparations. With all these days off work (I am still testing positive but still feeling basically fine), I am making significant progress. I have finished shopping for everything that needs to be shipped to a recipient, and have shipped the things I needed to ship. I have finished the two children with reasonable wish lists, and am chipping away at the three without. I have finished my brother/SIL/niece/nephew, and my parents, and Paul. I have gift cards on the way for the various mail carriers. I have finished the shopping for the two kids we “adopted” from a local holiday-assistance program, and have dropped off their gifts at the center; that’s a big project but has rapidly become one of my favorite parts of Christmas; if you are interested-but-anxious, as I was, I highly recommend trying it one year to see if you like it too.

I have finished the Christmas cards, and have had the children bring the boxes of Christmas card supplies back up to the barn, remembering to keep out a little pile of them for giving out with the gift cards. I have gotten the finished cards into the mail, and it gives me a happy feeling to think of them winging out in all directions. Cards have started to arrive, and I am putting them up around the doorway. I have brought down the rest of the Christmas dishes/mugs/dishtowels.

The stockings still need work, but I still have time, and I can’t do the in-store part of that until I’m not shedding virus, and I do have enough of a good start that I’m not panicking (yet). I’ve probably missed all the fun Trader Joe’s stuff, but maybe not.

I still need to do alllll the wrapping (except for the few things already wrapped and shipped). But I had the kids bring the wrapping paper down from the barn into the house proper, and that is a start.

Oh!: and I found where I’d put the Scentsicles!! (That’s a Target link; here’s the Amazon link.) This is at least the second year they’ve been missing, but I was SO SURE I had put them somewhere that MADE SENSE. I could have just bought more, but first of all they do cost a little, and secondly I couldn’t remember which scent I’d preferred (White Winter Fir, it turns out). So anyway I found them: they were in the Christmas cards box, but had gotten under some mostly-empty boxes of cards so I couldn’t see them; when I took out allll the cards boxes this year I found them. And that IS such a good place for them, because I often get the cards out before anything else. I have two ornaments boxes and use them alternating years, so I can’t put the Scentscicles in with either set, unless I get two sets of Scentsicles, and maybe that would be the sensible thing to do when this set runs out, considering.

I still need to put together my co-worker gifts. I have a gift for my Secret Santa person (I got her one lighted birch tree, plus a USB wall charger block and a nice long A to C cable), and that all needs to be packaged up nicely in a gift bag or something, perhaps with some candy because I feel a little nervous about the gift, and a gift tag, and I like to festoon the top of the gift bag with a string of those tiny battery-powered lights, the ones that are on a teeny wire; I buy them on like 75-90% off after Christmas, and it’s so fun and silly to see them lighting up the tissue paper. And then for each co-worker’s stocking bag I went with a hand-held postal scale (they’re cheaper in bulk but there’s shipping, so if you only need a few here’s the Amazon link).

(image from sciplus.com)

I realize this is a little odd, gift-wise. But because everyone who decides to participate in this gift exchange has to gather together a LOT of gifts, the gifts are by necessity inexpensive; and that usually means a baggie of candy, or cocoa packets, or an ornament, or a candy cane decorated as a reindeer, or something of that sort. And that is very, very nice, and fills us all with goodwill and cheer! And it also gives me the freedom to do something different and perhaps odd, because our candy/cocoa/ornament/reindeer bases are pretty much covered. So I got everyone the scale I use ALL THE TIME, even though Paul said “But does anyone even SEND letters?” Because you know who is more likely than the usual person to still send letters? PEOPLE WHO WORK IN LIBRARIES. And it doesn’t have to be used for letters! You can weigh anything up to four ounces!

Now I need to package up all these scales somehow (probably in these peppermint treat bags, if I can get them here in time), with ribbon and to/from labels. And I wondered, should I CLIP SOMETHING in the little clip? A hot cocoa packet, for example? Paul said the obvious thing would be to clip a Christmas card there (to show people what the lil thing is FOR, if nothing else), and yes, but sigh. I don’t want to write out 20 Christmas cards just as accessories; my co-workers don’t want or need a Christmas card from me; the card won’t fit in the baggie. I do have in my possession eentsy-weentsy little 1.5″-square baggies (purchased in the making of Elizabeth’s tree-nut-free countdown-to-Christmas calendar); I could fill them with Christmas M&Ms or Cadbury snowballs and clip THOSE. I think that would be cuter. Also: yummier. Or I think I could clip the baggie of M&Ms/Cadbury AND a small gift tag with to/from on it, and skip the whole outer gift bag and ribbon situation.

ARE YOU MAKING PROGRESS TOO?? Tell Swistle!

Oh dear, this year it is a challenge. We need a calendar than can BEAR UP. I don’t want super cute, or funny. I don’t want whimsy. I might want art. I might want beauty. I might want science/botany. My 2024 calendar would be good for next year, but it looks like there isn’t a 2025 version. This is what it looked like:

(image from Amazon.com)

Each month was another soothing category of drawings.

After searching “2025 wall calendar” and getting, as the fourth option, a calendar of fake pictures of the incoming president lifting weights, riding an eagle look-mom-no-hands, dressed as a benevolent Santa, etc., I really feel this may be the right year for Space Cats:

(image from Amazon.com)

Space Cats calendar. I think that’s a pretty accurate metaphorical representation of how off the rails everything feels like it’s going to be.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Farmer’s Almanac calendar looks soothing. Nice vintage picture of flowers, surrounded by some nice soothing facts. Such as that January 20th is Martin Luther King Jr. Day AND Inauguration Day this year!

(image from Amazon.com)

I think the very most likely is a William Morris calendar. There are many. Soothing, soothing wallpaper. I think I will just look at the backs of them all, count how many of the images I love/like on each, and pick the one with the most tally marks.

(image from Amazon.com)

Or the Redouté flower calendar. I consider it every year; I’ve never bought it. This may be exactly the right year for monthly flowers.

(image from Amazon.com)

Good Enough To Eat: The Art of Comfort Food calendar. Or actually I could be persuaded to consider monthly food. I like the way the lower half of the calendar has a pretty colored border; I don’t like the way it smallens the writing space.

(image from Amazon.com)

New York Botanical Garden calendar. Yesssss, inject me with the soothing botanical drawings. But…it looks as if they have allowed the soothing botanical drawings to trespass WELL down into the lower half of the calendar, and I need ALL THAT ROOM for writing things in squares, so this one is out for me. But it is so beautiful (scroll down the listing to see what it looks like hung up on a wall, showing January in all its glory), and I know not everyone needs as much writing space, so I am including it.

(image from Amazon.com)

Okay, this GuassLee calendar and I are on the same page: if you need more room for the illustration, FINE, make the PAGE bigger! and then the calendar squares have more room TOO! But I don’t understand their assertion that this calendar goes through June 2026. Many calendars claim to go from September of the current year through December of the next year, but what they mean is that they have four months of this year sharing one page at the beginning. This calendar seems to be saying it has six extra months, leaving you stranded in the middle of the next year. What are you supposed to do THEN? I read some reviews that mention that the pictures repeat after the first 12, and NOW I’ve had a thought: you can just use those extra pages to KEEP TRACK for the next year, and then TRANSFER those to your new calendar. I’m always having to write the next year’s appointments on the back of the current calendar, but this would be better. Okay, I am back in favor of this calendar again. That’s even enough room for all the every-6-months dentist appointments! And the end of the school year!

(image from Amazon.com)

Esté Macleod calendar. I believe I’ve chosen this one twice, and was happy with it both times. In previous years I’ve inclined away from repeating a calendar, but this year I am more inclined toward the familiar/comfortable.

(image from Amazon.com)

Feathered Friends calendar. Always on the list, because I can be sure I’ll love it.

(image from Amazon.com)

I very much like the look of this Kate Heiss calendar. Soothing and British. Pretty without making me feel like it’s trying to cheer me up. And how did I not know she had a sticker advent calendar??? I am thinking of buying it and using it as a 24 Days of Christmas post-Christmas calendar. I think I actually need the cheery-little-daily thing MORE after Christmas. In fact, I’m buying it right now. I’ll put it in my stocking.

••••••••

As always, if you use a wall calendar, I would love to hear what you’re buying/considering, as well as about any calendars you’re buying for other people.

Also, let’s do something I did for awhile and then forgot about doing: if you want to be calendar twins with me and you have a U.S. shipping address you can use (it doesn’t have to be yours: I can send the calendar as a gift to your friend/relative in the U.S. and say it’s from you, or from you and me if you think that would be funnier), you can leave a comment, and when I decide what I want for myself I’ll order one for you too. It’s a little tricky because if you’re commenting on this post about what calendar you already have, you might not want another calendar—so let’s say that if you want to be entered into the giveaway, include a little <3 heart in your comment. You can comment JUST <3, or you can add it anywhere in the comment. I’ll pick a name on the day I pick my calendar.

[Update: I have chosen a calendar, and I have chosen a commenter! Sara, I’ve sent you an email!]

I had an over-reaction to Christmas lights—and actually, already, mid-sentence, I want to go back and say it was NOT an over-reaction, and I am not sorry, and I was right.

If you use and like LED lights, I would like to warn you that you may find yourself getting a little protective of your lights during this post. I am going to use judgement words such as “right” and “wrong” and “ruin Christmas.” Normally when I write a post like this, where I know for sure that my view is subjective and other subjective opinions are just as valid, I temper my vocabulary to reflect that knowledge. And as each sentence unfurled, I attempted to do this, but I could not do it FULLY—not without tempering the strength of FEELING. So you will have to know, as you read, that I KNOW that LED lights are almost certainly morally and ethically superior; and that I KNOW that many people like them and even PREFER them to incandescents; and that I know that they are not wrong to feel that way because this is only about PREFERENCE and I know that; and that I KNOW that LED lights are great in many ways, such as that you can plug so many of them together, and they don’t cause fires, and you can use so many more of them without creating a horrifying power bill. I know all these things. I DO. But you are going to have to read this post as FEELINGS. If necessary, change the words around: imagine it is someone talking about how they used incandescent bulbs and found them so pallid and old-fashioned and wasteful and outlet-hogging and dangerous they couldn’t stand it and had to start over; rejoice with them, as I would, as they go back to the store and get LEDs and now they are happy! Know in your heart that I only care about MY tree in MY living room: I don’t have important feelings or opinions about YOUR tree because that is YOUR tree. This is a post about Christmas-light FEELINGS at a time when feelings are already elevated by many other things. It is a post about ANYTHING that causes intense feelings at this time when feelings are already elevated by many other things. It is a post that lets you skip a boring argument about which lights are better and why, and instead say “Oh, I know: I had a similarly intense reaction to star vs. angel this year” or “I can’t explain it, but I started crying when the particular holiday stamps I’d chosen were out of stock” or “For some inexplicable reason, this year I am spending WAY too many hours dithering over gifts—and when I finally choose something and order it, then I spend the next days hand-wringing that I made the wrong decision, and sometimes canceling the order so I have to start all over.”

To finally begin the story: I’d started at a certain level of stress just because it was important to me to get the tree decorated during the few days the twins were home for Thanksgiving. We didn’t do it Thursday, and Edward was away most of Friday getting a Crohn’s treatment, and we were going to be driving them back on Sunday, and here it was Friday evening and the lights weren’t even on the tree yet. Paul brought down the lights from the barn, and these were expensive good-quality “heavy duty” indoor/outdoor lights purchased within the last 1-3 years, and all of the strings failed to light. ALL of them. I tried other outlets just in case: nothing. I looked at them for obvious damage: nothing. On two of the strings, a short (two-foot, maybe?) section DID light. On the other strings, nothing lit. Inexplicable and maddening, and what a colossal waste.

I went to Paul with the issue. Normally I would wait for a sale on lights; normally I would buy them on one of my errand days; but this was the situation, and tomorrow was the last day to decorate the tree, so we drove to Target 20 minutes away and bought lights. Paul thought we should get LED lights. We both remembered that I don’t like LED lights, but we both thought maybe my various issues with LED lights had been resolved: the picture on the box looked exactly the same for the incandescent and the LED lights, so maybe LED lights were good now, and not cold and too intensely colored and overbright-yet-unglowy. My beloved little lighted birch trees are lit with LED lights and those are nice and warm and glowy! And anyway we’re liberal progressive Democrats and we should have the energy-saving lights.

We got them home and I started to put them on the tree. I had bought more lights than I’d thought we’d need, but they only covered 2/3rds of the tree. I unwound all the strings and started over; now they covered 3/4ths of the tree. I attempted to rally: I told myself this was fine, we would just decorate the bottom 3/4ths together, and then after the twins were back at school I would go buy more lights and decorate the top 1/4th myself. No big deal. I went out of the room to wash my hands and get rid of the empty boxes—and when I came back into the room, I noticed I hated the lights.

I talked myself through it: I don’t HATE the lights. The lights are FINE. I was fine with them the whole time I was putting them on the tree (twice). They’re just DIFFERENT THAN BEFORE. Of course there will be an adjustment! Just because they look like PRIMARY POSTER-PAINT COLORS, and are FAR FAR TOO BRIGHT, and there is FAR TOO MUCH BLUE HERE, and they have NONE OF THE MAGICAL GLOW OF CHRISTMAS LIGHTS….*pant pant* NO no, it’s fine, they’re fine, I’m just adjusting. Besides, what is the alternative at this point? Yes, we spent more than double to get not-enough LED lights and they weren’t even on sale and I don’t like them, but it is mid-evening and we only have one more day. Am I really going to box up all these lights, drive BACK to Target, get the WASTEFUL incandescent lights, and start all over putting lights on this tree??? No. No.

…Yes. I unwound all the strings of lights off the tree. I carefully packaged them up exactly as they had been, all the little twistie-ties and extra bulbs and paperwork. It took forever, but not as forever as I’d feared. I was almost meditative as I did it: focused, calm, resolute, driven by certainty that this of all Christmases is not the one to try to get through without enjoying the Christmas lights on the tree. Nor do I want to wait until mid-December (when the twins are back again) to do the tree. The options therefore have narrowed, and the one that gives me what I want involves considerable time and hassle; nevertheless I choose it.

I went to Paul. I hate the lights. There aren’t enough of them. They ruin Christmas lights for me, and Christmas lights are one of my top favorite things about Christmas. One single car dealership (and we live among MANY) uses more electricity in ONE SINGLE HOUR than our little tree will use ALL MONTH, and our tree will bring significantly more joy. Somebody asking ChatGPT A SINGLE DUMB QUESTION TO GET A SINGLE DUMB ANSWER probably uses more electricity than our little tree will use. He got his coat and we drove back to Target, another 40-minute round-trip. We returned the lights mere hours after we’d bought them, and the clerk didn’t even blink. “I changed my mind about LED lights,” I said apologetically. “You’re allowed,” he said pleasantly. “I’m still a liberal progressive who thinks the environment is one of our primary worldwide concerns,” I managed not to add.

We bought incandescent lights for less than half the price of the LED ones. We bought the cheap store-brand ones, because buying the expensive heavy-duty ones hadn’t prevented the wastefulness of strings breaking. I bought half again as many as I’d bought before, and still had to add in the two 50-count light sets I’d had on hand to send back with the twins (who had already said they didn’t want them). The tree looks wonderful. The lights look right. During dinner William put on a couple of episodes by a YouTuber who feels as I do about LED lights, except the YouTuber has found a brand/kind he likes, whereas I still don’t think they’re right.

I am still testing negative for Covid, so Paul and William are still isolating. I don’t know what the guidelines are, since we seem to be working with old ones from a couple years ago, but my guess looking at the last missive from my workplace on the topic (from 2022) is that if I am negative on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I can then go to work wearing a mask on Monday—especially if I can work mostly in the stacks, and not be near other people. I will consult with my two bosses on that.

In the meantime, having Thursday and Friday off has been a tremendous boon. I am using almost all my time to work on Christmas things. I’m trying to focus on one giftee at a time; yesterday I focused mostly on William. When I was pretty much done with his shopping, I turned my attention to my niece, and spent some delightful time researching combat boots (it’s an item on her wish list) with the help of Henry who is a couple of years older than my niece and has friends who wear combat boots. It was QUITE fun: one of his friends was sending link after link, and we were sending links back, and now we have narrowed it down to…let’s see, eleven pairs. Today I will attempt to narrow that down further, and then pick another child to shop for—probably Elizabeth.

Whenever I get tired of paging through online shopping options, or when I start feeling chilly from not moving around enough, I go out to the barn and fetch a box of Christmas dishes, or the Melissa & Doug Countdown Tree, or a couple of decor items. Because of this effort, this morning I am drinking my coffee out of a Christmas mug and feeling happy about it. FURTHERMORE: it was a Christmas mug I have not seen for YEARS, because I had for some inexplicable reason tucked it down into the corner of the wreath box?? Probably what happened was that I was putting away the wreaths and noticed one more mug in the dishwasher, and just added it in—not knowing that the following years I wouldn’t bother with wreaths. (This new house doesn’t work with them the way the old house did.) I found it this year only in a last-ditch effort to find the Christmas tree skirt we apparently lost in the move. I dug my hand down into the wreath box feeling for velour, and found china.

The mug is a Stechcol (a brand I often find myself picking up admiringly when I’m at HomeGoods or Marshalls), and I remember choosing it on a shopping trip with my mom: there were four different designs, and we stood there for awhile ranking our favorites and deciding how many we would each buy. I think I bought two, but I’m not sure: I might have only bought one; I might have donated the other one if it seemed too similar (I am always TRYING to cut down on the number of mugs I have) (while also constantly buying new mugs); it might be tucked down into the corner of a DIFFERENT box of decor.