Procrastination Kills.

I'm unaware of how this happened, but the Holidays are only a few days away. I NEVER NEVER NEVER like to wait till the last minute (HAHAHAHAHA) but here I am, and it is blinking at me, waiting to see what I'll do.
This year, I completely blanked and could not come up with ANY ideas for gift giving. I was at an utter loss. I always intend to have these spectacular, perfectly appointed, deeply moving and personal gifts. Usually it ends up with a handmade card with a handpicked giftcard in its belly. Bummer. In the craziness that has been this year, I completely forgot my intentions. Now... I'm scrambling.
I have the usual purchased fare, I even think some of it will be appreciated, but the hand touch that I adore just wasn't there. There was no heart. Some of those gifts, though beautifully and tastefully wrapped by moi, are screaming at me from the tree: "YOU GRABBED ME WHILE YOU WERE IN LINE TEXTING PEOPLE!", "No one ever EVER wants socks.", "You only bought me because that wretched woman in the next aisle was looking for me, and you were feeling competitive.". SHUT IT GIFTS.
I feel guilty. No... I feel gggggguuuuuiiiiillllltttttyyyyyy. (
Now, with mere days away until the Festive Throw Down, I'm scrambling. Yes, everyone has a present. Yes, they all match my tree (that no one will see) and they all have an individual complimentary bow, and cute little tags. Woo hoo, I accomplished something, but why can I never feel that I did what I set out to do? Why do I forget that last year, on January 2nd, I vowed to take my monsters to a paint your own pottery store and put them to work in a mock-sweatshop of clay? Where is the heart?
So I went to the local craft emporium, and I think I've purchased just the right amount of heart. Now it just has to be assembled. I will probably be chained down for the next few days, crafting my heart, swearing, and then drunk sewing/crocheting. I know there'll be tears, feelings of inadequacy, and probably lots of fires, but I'm going to pretend that the saying "it is the thought that counts" isn't just what people say when they gift you boxes of crap. Will it work? I have no idea. Will it turn out as planned? Oh absolutely not. Will the intended recipients ever see what I will spend the next 48 hours of my life slaving over? I'm betting a big fat no. If the positively fugly hat I fashioned last night is any indication. But maybe it will make ME feel better. Like a present to myself. I may still only give them the gift certificates, and Christmas Blend coffee beans, but I'll know that at home, I have an absolutely horrendous tea towel with mutated images of my childrens' hands stitched on them.

Feigning Festive.

It is that time of year, (And I won't say "again" because, frankly, it only comes once in a year, so it can't be that time of year again in this year, but I digress...) and I'm battling inner turmoil and an inability to properly embrace the impending holiday season. I'm in a frosty funk, if you will.

As the mother of two small boys, you'd think I'd be positively brimming with spunk and inspiration. Please people, in theory, this is MY kind of holiday: lies, bribery, bending the purpose of the season to fit my will. It was tailor made for me. But I can't get there, not yet. I've been Kringle-blocked. No tree up (which is good considering there has been no "fall decor down" session.) no redundant viewings of Elf, no plotting and ploying my insane gift wrap scheme for the year. Nada. What in the butt has happened to me?

As a means of invoking the holiday spirit, I've come up with a logical (for me) game plan, and because I love you... whoever you are out there.... I'll share it with you:

Step One: Establish Proper Holiday Smell.

That's right folks. That says "smell". As the proper word escapes me, and I'm far too lazy to google it, I'll say that I am an Odor Whore. I am scent obsessed, and I can't set the stage without the proper odiferous gesso being applied to the blank canvas. (I miss you Bob Ross!) So, I know you were all fretting, but have no fear! I have found the ever-ellusive best scent of the season. No real shocker that it is by Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day as I'm fairly certain I've been implanted with a microchip that requires me to do their bidding. It is an adorably simple glass jar, petite and sweet, filled with the most delicious Orange Clove scented soy candle in the world. It is positively delightful. I'm not sure what sort of James Bond technology has been put in there, but it is absolutely mind erasing. I completely forget that I have eleventy-seven other things I should be doing aside from sniffing a freaking candle like a huffer.

Step Two: Lay the Scene.

This one is proving to be much trickier. It isn't that I don't want the proper festive decor to both invoke the mood and ram in the fact that I am a good Martha Stewart drone, it is just that I don't want to CLEAN up enough to actually set the stage. Not only will there be furniture-moving involved, as this is a new house with an untapped tree-friendly layout, but I'm fairly certain that I've discovered my children are fully aware that there is only one of me cleaning, and two of them destroying in tandem. Also, WHY is it that uncleaning is so much faster than cleaning??? That is for another day. This also requires the husby to come home at a reasonable hour and cooperate in unearthing the decorations... which I'm fairly certain are strewn all over this house like Christmasy Easter eggs. I've seen some of the storage area combinations our moving company came up with. If the extra bathroom giblets are stored with the excess kitchen gadgets and my wedding dress, I can only imagine where the Christmas tree will be. Plus... I'm plain dreading the moment Niblet Number 2 discovers the glory that is undressing the tree.

Step Three: Bake Tons of Crap.

I love to bake. It is no surprise, I enjoy it... and it's fruits. But more than that... the BEST facet of this holiday tradition: Thinking about making other people fat. Yes, I'm that deep. I'll take a tiny bit of pleasure in the caloric-laden bites others will consume thanks to me. If I can't get skinnier... I'll make them all heavier. It is a simple joy. I also adore coming up with tedious little treats that look cute in cellophane bags. I don't even care if they taste good. I'll come up with anything that looks like Christmas: Marshmallows in chocolate covered top-hats, coconut covered snowballs, jingle bells dipped in chocolate because.. really, there is no good way to make a chocolate jingle bell that LOOKS good, and it really is an under appreciated niche... and they are sure to throw Dr. Grandma D.D.S. some work to make up for any lame gift I may give her.

Step Four: Make Christmas Cards.

This one is really bugging me this year. I used to hand make cards. It would take HOURS, and I'd be in that sort of glorious, delicious pain that says "yes, I've hammered 700 grommets into paper for 8 hours and no one will notice or care, but I AM HAPPY". Now, I choose to exercise my Photoshop muscles. Unfortunately, they aren't core muscles, and they're out of shape... so I'm behind... and the price of postage is daunting.

Step Five: Select the Holiday Fashions.

This one is a real road block this year as, suddenly and inexplicably, I sort of don't care. I got the boys cute lil matching outfits... and I am contemplating just dragging something from the bottom of my dresser drawers that I haven't seen in ages (as my husband has an unreal talent for packing things SO tightly into those drawers that you'll never see the stuff on the bottom again. I'm not certain he hasn't squished them right through the bottom of the drawer and into an alternate dimension), throwing it on and calling it a statement. I don't feel cute. I don't have the budget for cute, and today I have the first blemish I've had in months so I am sure it will never go away and only continue to grow exponentially erupting into a full-fledged parasitic twin by Christmas, complete with fully blinking eyes.

Step Six: Project Gift Wrap.

This one usually gets me all amped up in a big way. I am uber compulsive about my gift wrap, carefully selecting the colors to compliment my tree, the perfect paper for Santa to use, the coordinating bows and different ways to adorn the packages... I've even embossed gift tags before. This year, all I can think is "When in the frig am I going to have time to wrap gifts, and how will I hide the scotch tape from the kids?". Also, I'm seriously lacking in hiding spaces. So, for now, those gifts are stowed away in my car... (For all you would-be burglars out there... unless you have a dire need for environmentally friendly, somewhat novel children activities, and whatever random bits I got for a steal on black Friday, I'd avoid it.)

Step Seven: Enlist Proper Sidekicks.

For me, this is the simplest and most effective of all of the steps. Homemade cocoa and Buttershots... heavy on the Buttershots, and Burt's Bee's Peppermint and Honey lip balm. May be chintzy, but these are my holiday must haves. And I drink the cocoa nearly as much as I apply the balm... so I walk that fine line of ingesting enough spirits to be spirited and tolerable, and not getting so drunk that I forget that I was alive during Christmas 2010.

So... It is time for me to push through my Bahumbugs and soldier on until the spirit slaps me in the face. I'll make the traditional cocoa, and we'll trim the tree and hang the coordinating stockings, and the Elf on a Shelf will watch over us with his creepy, almost sadistic smile, and I'll get there... eventually. For now, I'll snuggle with my red glass full of white (because it is SO MUCH BIGGER), sit on my fanny, and make my list, check it twice, and then burry it under the junk mail so I can do what I do best: procrastinate.