Twas the night before the night before Christmas

I am sitting in bed on Dec 23rd quietly freaking out. I have a presents that need to be wrapped, more presents that still need to be bought, a house that needs to be cleaned (badly, I might add), and I am expecting almost a dozen guests tomorrow.

Sure, part of me says "Get of your butt and take care of business, girl!" Unfortunately, that's not the part I am listening to. I prefer, for now, to listen to that little voice that says, "Relax, it will all get done. Just get some rest tonight and get a head start tomorrow."

Yeah, that's probably not going to happen.

See, I know me. "Me" will probably finish this post, and then start running around the house like a madwoman trying to take care of whatever business I can before passing out at roughly 3:00 am. Things are just more complicated this year. I haven't been this unprepared for a Holiday since EG was born. I feel seriously bad about this. Even a little ashamed.

I have managed to pull off some beautiful holidays over the past few years. I have hosted parties two weeks before Christmas Eve. I have had presents bought, wrapped, and hidden a full week before Christmas night. I have presented glorious meals where everything came out of the oven at the same time and the turkey was done all the way through. This year, though, I'm just not hacking it.

I have been trying to make memories this year, instead of "things" in the hope that it might somehow make up for a slimmer-than-usual Christmas. I have spent time with the girls making Christmas stocking crafts and paper chain decorations. We even got around to painting the snowman napkin holder that we received four years ago and never finished. I've let them all stay up late watching Christmas movies all week and said "yes" to one more cookie before bed. They have been remarkably sweet and compliant in return. I have never seen them so ready and willing to help out with chores. I guess a little honey goes a long way with these honeybees.

I can't help but feel terrible inside, though. Like I am denying them a quality holiday because there won't be as many presents under the tree. Everything about this Christmas is starting to feel half-hearted, now.  I am almost dreading Christmas morning. Will they like what I did manage to get them? Will they be disappointed that there isn't more? Am I being overly nervous about all this?

Perhaps I am just feeling the crunch that I always do. The feeling that I wish I could do more. Every year turns out just fine. The girls are ecstatic with whatever they get. There are always a ton of homemade presents from the girls to everyone else. We enjoy the day snuggling and hanging around in our PJ's and eating Christmas candy instead of a real dinner.

This year, I am more frightened than ever that it won't be that way. That this year they will actually figure out how much hassle and stress I feel. I have never felt so resentful of this holiday as I do right now. Why does it have to be so commercial and stressful and expensive. As I said, I have been trying to pare down the amount of physical things on holidays and try to engage more of the spiritual side of things. I can't even find the spirit of it right now though. It feels like a terrible waste of time and money and paper. I have been working so hard all year to reduce the amount of stuff we have in our home. A few months ago we held a yard sale and sold off half the garage full of things we didn't need. Making extra grocery money didn't hurt either.

Since before we even moved in here 18 months ago, we have been de-cluttering, streamlining, de-junking, prioritizing, organizing. A very smart lady I like to listen to says that you can't organize clutter. You can only get rid of it. You should only keep things around you that you really love. If it doesn't make you smile, release it so it can bless others or throw it away if it isn't nice enough to bless someone else with (if no one else wants it, it is trash, and do you really deserve to have it around any more than someone else does?) Now that  I have spent all this time getting rid of stuff, it feels just wrong to purposely go and gt more stuff that my girls and husband don't really need just so that they can say they unwrapped something on a particular day of the year.

I hope today will be better than tonight and maybe this funk will disappear.

Am I alone in this? Does anyone else ever feel this way? Leave a comment and let me knwo if you think I am crazy or if you are on the crazy train with me.