O Little Town of Rush and Mayhem

I think a lot, at this time of year, not just about everything that has to get done, but the whole issue of expectations, and where they come from, and what to do with them (as opposed to what I sometimes feel like telling people what to do with their expectations, which is another matter entirely). It's such an odd thing, this season of alleged comfort and joy, merry brightness, decked halls and midnights clear, that counter-intuitively often causes huge stress and strain and great antipathy toward one's fellow human.

Last year Matt was away for work the second week of December. It was terrible - I felt like it put us so behind in Christmas prep that we never caught up. I didn't send out Christmas cards at all for the first time in years. This year there was no travel on the horizon but I didn't really trust it to stay that way, so we started decorating early, as opposed to my usual "oh, we'll start December first, oh wait, was today December first? We'll do it on the week-end, oh wow that's a lot of sports happening this week-end" and whoops, late again. 

So we started early, and I'm not working yet, and I've judiciously employed my mantra of "do what you have to, then do what you can, then let the rest go". I've baked four pans of salted chocolate toffee pretzel bark, two batches of toffee shortbread, two pans of skor brownies (yeah, we like our skor bit-employing recipes in this house), three batches of white chocolate-dipped lemon shortbread, two batches of sugar and spice cookies, and three batches of gingerbread scones. Most of my Christmas shopping was done last week.

And you know what? IT'S STILL STRESSFUL. I am NOT calm and Zen and beatific. I have given away or fed people most of the baking and I feel like I should bake more. I keep thinking of presents that would be perfect that it's now too late to buy. My parents are coming over for Christmas Eve and I have no idea what to serve. 

So here I am, privilege up the wazoo, with way more time and money to throw at this problem than most people have. How do we do this? Why do we do this? 

There have been really great moments. The day of Christmas book club I realized it was short story night and I hadn't read the short stories yet. Then I realized I didn't really feel like reading the stories, so I baked more cookies instead, and showed up and happily confessed my delinquency and had a lovely night hanging out with book club friends. Today the oven died while I was baking more lemon shortbread - I mean, the element started sputtering and sparking in spectacular fashion, and once I figured out that it wasn't going to explode and kill me, I turned it off. I swore for a bit, then wrapped up the rest of the dough, shoved it in the fridge, texted my husband to please figure out how to fix it and went to sit by the tree with my dog. When Matt got home, we opened the oven to find that the cookies I figured were a write-off had actually baked perfectly in the cooling oven.

This isn't a metaphor, though - most cookies don't bake themselves, and crowded stores suck, and there's never enough time to do everything, and we're always being encouraged to spend more money than we should. So I don't know. What's the mid-point between Grinch and Crazed Gingerbread Stepford Wife? I don't want my family to be disappointed, and I also don't want the secret ingredient to be resentment. 

If you have any wisdom on this subject, feel free to share. If not, I'm happy to tell you to do what you have to, do what you can, then let the rest go as many times as you need. Also, here is a picture of my lovely daughter wearing a Peace sweatshirt.