I used to love Christmas. But now that I am a mom, I have finally found the true meaning... Christmas = stress. Three of the last four Decembers I have been pregnant, and for some reason, I have found it hard to really get into the Christmas spirit. Maybe it is my body telling me to take it easy... I should probably take the hint.
When I first spent Christmas at Josh's house, his family, his mom in particular, spent the whole holiday season going around saying, "Merry F*ing Christmas". I thought that was very un-Christmasy of her at the time, but now I get it. Baking. Shopping. Wrapping. Visiting. Packing. Travelling. CLEANING. It all boils down to one thing: more stress for Mom. It's too much. I just barely keep our regular lives under control, let alone have time for all of these extra other things expected of me during the holidays. Josh doesn't seem to get it. He will help out if I specifically ask him to do a certain task, but it does not cross his mind to ask me if I need any extra help when he sees me getting super stressed out like this. And that only perpetuates the issue.
Last night I was up working on last minute Christmas things (of which there are a still a plethora), and Josh informs me that I am making it too hard for myself, "You are making handmade wrapping paper out of fabric - that is more effort than you need to put in." While this may be true, I still needed some way to wrap these oddly-shaped, non-boxed presents. And so I was making fabric present bags. He suggested just wrapping them crappily in paper and blaming it on him. Helpful.
He ended up staying up later than me, which he does almost every Friday, because he was 'too excited to sleep', (but not for Christmas, no,) because he got his first song on an internet radio show. Normally I would try harder to join him in his excitement, but right now stress and exhaustion have set up camp in all corners of my body and brain. Now, I don't mind him staying up later, as he needs this time for himself to unwind. But sometimes it gets out of hand and he ends up staying up WAY too late, rendering himself unfunctional the next day. And I certainly can't have that. Not today. I still have approximately a million things to do, and at the very least he is going to have to be awake to watch Laura. So, when I woke up at 5:30 this morning, and he still hadn't come to bed, I felt my blood pressure starting to rise. I was not going to be able to go back to sleep until I knew if he had gone to bed. I poke my head into the guest room. Nope, not in there. I poke my head down the stairs. Ahhh, he is on the couch. So he does know what's good for him after all. I guess he heard me puddling around upstairs, so he came up then. He said he went to bed at 2am, but didn't want to wake me up so he slept on the couch. Good. Except last night I really wanted to have a nice little Christmas Eve Eve of our own since we are going to be away and/or have guests for the best part of the next week = not much time for just us. But I guess that wasn't going to happen.
Anyway, I can't think of a very good way to wrap up this post, and I really can't legitimize any more time spent venting when I still have so many other things to do. I guess next year I will just need to start earlier.
Merry Christmas, everyone! :S
Awwwww, Jess. Don't be so stressed! Yes, it would definitely be nice to have more help.
ReplyDeleteBut, if that doesn't happen (and you might think this sounds bad), I have found the best way to enjoy the season is to lower your expectations (for the holiday and yourself). It's not really a bad thing. This year, Noel brought down a bunch of decorations from the attic and last night when he was putting up the empty boxes I saw that there was still a full box of decorations that we hadn't put out (fake fluffy snow and decorations for the mantle, etc) and I just decided to go ahead and put it back up in the attic instead of trying to find time to put it out. So what if those decorations don't get up this year?
Also, Shelby "unwrapped" some presents already. Some of them were totally destroyed, but other only had a corner ripped. I was going to unwrap and them rewrap the present with the ripped corner, but then I realised that it would be MUCH easier just to tape the corner. I wouldn't have done that for a present for someone we didn't know very well, but this was for Noel's sister and she is quite familiar with Shelby's antics, so I decided she would find it cute. :)
So, I hope you find ways to relax and enjoy the holiday for what it is, not what it should or could be.
I really do hope you have a Merry Christmas!
The Christmas Eve had just turned one, Eve and I both were insanely sick the week leading up to Christmas... and I still had everything to do. It was so bad I ran out of breast milk (puking, not eating, etc...) so that added to the stress since I couldn't even feed Eve and she needed to nurse more than ever! I could barely get out of bed. I asked for help from "Daddy". Ya. I got exactly one hour Christmas Eve to wrap my gifts. Merry f*#&ing Christmas. Sometimes we just gotta let go. I agree with Josh, except make him wrap the gifts badly so you really can blame him. At least you have a little help!
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