Behind
I’m behind. I’m still not decorated for Christmas. I really like getting the tree up the day after Thanksgiving; I like to have Christmas in my home for the entire month, even the two or so days of the month before Christmas month…November, that is. I watch my neighbors string lights across their eaves, and glowing snowmen (“mo-men,” as Essie calls them) and Santa Clauses wobble lightheartedly across their lawns, and I feel this growing pressure to not be the only house on the block not in the festivities.
I’m a fraction ahead in the making of our traditional toffee “gift” candy, but as my mom, hubby, brother, and family have been nibbling slowly away at it, the minimal head-start window slowly evaporates on that corner of the month as well.
I haven’t started my Christmas letter yet. Haven’t even taken a family picture. I’m thinking about using our family 4th of July picture, but I realize that with the absence my rotund belly, that one gives itself obviously away as outdated.
I walk into stores and am slapped in the face with oversized Christmas ornaments and bulbs dangling from the ceiling, an ugly reminder that my Christmas tree still lies on the floor of the garage, still waiting to be removed from the bag and assembled from a skeleton of mashed synthetic branches into the shockingly spurious image of a nine-foot fir (does anybody buy real ones anymore?).
I’m behind in posts too. I have several posts whirling around in the dark recesses of my thoughts, struggling to make their way out, like the post commemorating Esther’s birth (since I missed her birthday in my holiday postlessness) and the post honoring my hubby on his also-missed-posting-about birthday. And the longer they whirl around upstairs, the more likely they are to find a permanent home and begin gathering dust.
I don’t like being behind, but I’m afraid this has become symptomatic of every December for me; I think with the addition of a new member to our growing family, I better just get used to it.
I’m a fraction ahead in the making of our traditional toffee “gift” candy, but as my mom, hubby, brother, and family have been nibbling slowly away at it, the minimal head-start window slowly evaporates on that corner of the month as well.
I haven’t started my Christmas letter yet. Haven’t even taken a family picture. I’m thinking about using our family 4th of July picture, but I realize that with the absence my rotund belly, that one gives itself obviously away as outdated.
I walk into stores and am slapped in the face with oversized Christmas ornaments and bulbs dangling from the ceiling, an ugly reminder that my Christmas tree still lies on the floor of the garage, still waiting to be removed from the bag and assembled from a skeleton of mashed synthetic branches into the shockingly spurious image of a nine-foot fir (does anybody buy real ones anymore?).
I’m behind in posts too. I have several posts whirling around in the dark recesses of my thoughts, struggling to make their way out, like the post commemorating Esther’s birth (since I missed her birthday in my holiday postlessness) and the post honoring my hubby on his also-missed-posting-about birthday. And the longer they whirl around upstairs, the more likely they are to find a permanent home and begin gathering dust.
I don’t like being behind, but I’m afraid this has become symptomatic of every December for me; I think with the addition of a new member to our growing family, I better just get used to it.
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