Ever Mindful

One day this week, I found myself curled up in bed, tearfully texting a dear friend that I just wasn't in the spirit.  This is nothing new.  Every year around this time, I start to feel a little overwhelmed.  

I'm not enough of a planner to start preparing for the holidays in September, so suddenly December is upon me, and I don't have a tree and my gifts are half made and there's just not enough time!  And then I remember to take a breath.  And that I don't have to do it all.  Least of all, live up to some trumped up expectations that I have for myself.

  I'm going to be mindful of how fortunate I am this year and not overreach.

I started the project above on Wednesday.  It's a skirt for a tree that I don't have.  I'm expecting a houseful of friends on Saturday who will have fun even if that tree skirt isn't finished and if I serve them store bought bread instead of homemade brioche dinner rolls.  

So the table is set for tomorrow and tonight I will sit and stitch and be mindful of all the reasons that I love this time of year and all the wonderful people in my life and all the ways that I am so, so lucky.

 

Somethin's Cookin'

December 1st is tomorrow and, today, it seems, the sense of foreboding or melancholy or whatever-it-is-that's-been-bothering-me, has come to a head.  For the last couple of weeks I've been plagued by some very un-Christmasy thoughts.  Thoughts that were very Bah Humbug and very, well, not me.

I couldn't figure it out.  I didn't have the holiday spirit and I always have the holiday spirit and then it hit me - this was what some people call stress.  That feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it all in.  On top of the hype of Black Friday that seemed to creep in well before Thanksgiving, pile on the multitude of blogs that I flip through during the day (don't tell my boss) where perfectly adorable bloggers are decking the halls and making homemade salted caramels and wearing vintage frocks and, well, I'm quite primed for a melt down.

Then I remembered this post, from earlier in the month (Seriously, read it.) and I told myself to take a deep breath and pick two.   Honestly and without irony, I literally choose two things I can do from this list each night and let the other ones go without feeling guilty. 

Here's the list:
gym

cook dinner

clean up after dinner

make (sew, bake or knit)

quality time with the man (this means eating dinner at the table and talking, instead of watching TV or choosing a movie that we both want to watch together)

If It means giving up the gym one night so I can finish up a project or putting a project on hold so we can linger a little longer over dinner with a glass of wine then so be it!  It's a small list, but I'm also adding to it some Christmas cheer.  

Here's another list.  A list of holiday goodies I want to make as gifts, instead of buying into the holiday crush of consumerism.

linen napkins

coffee cozies

building blocks

hot chocolate

candied citrus

I'll try to get to them all, but if I don't, then that's OK, too.