Buzzing along with the holidays

Oh, the holidays are very much with us. I haven't watched a holiday movie yet, nor listened to a holiday song (except in stores) (oh, OK, and on the car radio, but not at home, not from a CD or record or tape), but they are here. They are here.

Last week I was feeling panicked about the holidays and my lack of progress in getting ready, but today things feel much more under control. I got a lot done this past week! Let's review:

Cards, calendars, etc. I wrote and mailed 47 cards, which is basically all of them. I give our next-door neighbors plates of cookies along with their cards, so those will have to wait until I bake the cookies. And I'm sitting on a card for our old cleaning lady/babysitter from Ridgecrest, because I don't know where she is. I usually get an email from her around about now, so I'll wait for that.

We received two cards this week, one from Rocket Boy's cousin in Hawaii and a very cute one from Joe & Jill Biden (see photo -- so that's how the Democratic National Committee spends our donations), and we also got an emailed Christmas letter from one of my cousins.

Still to do: the family calendar that I make on Shutterfly. That's a job for this coming week.

Decorations. I set up my dollhouse in the living room, though I haven't brought out all the Christmas decorations for it yet. I did buy the dolls a new Christmas tree at Joann Fabrics, because I don't like the Playmobil one that I have, too pink. I also bought a little flocked tree ($1 at Target), to stand in the yard. (Their yard.)

I realized that my doll furniture didn't fit in the house, so I went online and ordered a new third floor from Playmobil. It arrived yesterday and I put it together, and now that's the children's room (with six bunk beds). The twins think this is ridiculous and that it looks dumb. They are wrong. But I might move the children's stuff to the 2nd floor, switch it out with the office/guestroom that is there now (see the mom sitting at the computer desk and the cat tree in the corner?). Haven't decided yet.

We took the new/old fake tree out of the box, but haven't put any lights or ornaments on it yet. Partly, that is because I hate putting the lights on. I have to psych myself up for that. I really would like one of those prelit trees. However, our hairdresser Melisa told me that she has an old prelit tree, and all the lights have stopped working and they have to put separate lights on the tree anyway. So maybe I should just deal with it, put the lights on, stop fussing.

The other reason for not putting anything on the tree yet, though, is that Baby Kitty keeps climbing it! He was also eating it yesterday -- why? why? why eat icky plastic needles? -- and today he threw up his breakfast, sigh. It might be best if we just have a plain tree this year. Or no tree. No, I'm kidding, but honestly, cats!

The kids are a little disturbed by how small the tree is. I am delighted. I am really done with big trees.

We lit the first candle of Advent last Sunday and will light the first and second tonight. We've lit the Hanukkah candles the last three nights. Lighting the candles forces me to sit in my chair watching them, because we are afraid that Sillers will investigate them and burn her whiskers off (or worse), like she did a few years ago.

But Sillers (so far) is being very good. She comes and sits on the loveseat and watches the candles, but she doesn't get on the table and mess with them. Yet. 

I still don't trust her.

Entertainment. Nothing this past week and nothing scheduled for the week ahead. The book group is coming on the 19th. I could start listening to Christmas CDs and records this week.

Food. I baked one batch of cookies this week -- peppermint bark chocolate chip something-or-others -- but that was for the kids. If someone were to stop by the house on a holiday visit I could serve them some of these, but they're not really intended as Christmas cookies per se. I might make another batch this week, but I'm planning to make most of the cookies the following week, during finals. I could buy ingredients this week, that might be good.

Presents, shopping. I'm almost done with my shopping, and I've wrapped most of the gifts too. I bought myself a couple of nice things and wrapped them -- you can see one in the picture of the tree, under the tree. Teen B picked it up, said, "Obviously it's a Barbie" and set it down again. (Note: he wasn't wrong.)

This will be my last week to shop and I have to think of where to go on Thursday and Friday. I haven't gone to Pearl Street yet, nor out to Flatirons Crossing. But the urgency is gone. If I had to stop shopping right now, I'd be fine (except I still have to get a King Soopers gift card for RB's brother).

Giving. I gave away a lot of money on Colorado Gives Day, very satisfying. Oh, and I took Teen A's old trombone to the music store to have it cleaned, in preparation for giving it away. He hasn't played it since May of 2020, so it's been sitting around waiting for me to deal with it for three and a half years. We're almost there.

Travel. Rocket Boy plans to leave St. Louis on December 21st, which would get him here the night of the 22nd (he's going to drive). He'll probably drive back on January 1st or 2nd.

Reading. I managed to finish the book group book (The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes), and my gigantic presidential biography, and now I'm reading the first of my planned December books from the kids' room. I'm also reading a Christmas book (I alternate chapters).

Homework. Need to take a break now and go work on homework with the kids! OK, I'm back. We have a lot to do this coming week, lots of big projects that aren't started yet, etc. Last night both boys started telling me about how they were going to fail this or that class because of this or that project that they'd neglected to do. Just when I think high school is getting easier, I realize that it isn't.

Writing. I had a lot of fun writing this week. I decided to move my writing hour to the morning, 10-11 am, so that I would definitely get to do it, even on days when the kids get home early. My normal writing time is 3-4 pm, which means it doesn't happen on the days they get out at 3. I decided that writing was more important than housework. It is!

Yardwork. I worked on the fallen aspen this week, but eventually gave up. I got it out of the lilac bush and off the roof, and I filled the compost bin with branches from it, so that was good, but now it's just lying out there in the snow (we got dumped on, Friday night), waiting for someone to pay attention to it. Maybe I can get Rocket Boy to saw it up when he comes.

Cleaning. I pulled myself together and did some cleaning this week. Most importantly, I tried out my vacuum cleaner, which works great now that Rocket Boy fixed the plug. I probably won't focus too much on cleaning this week, but I'll try to keep up with everything.

Self care. I've been doing pretty well with getting enough sleep and all that. The digestive enzymes seem to be working well -- this week I ate a nice lunch every day and had almost no heartburn. On Wednesday I decided it was time to make some phone calls, so I scheduled an appointment with the gastroenterology PA (that's this coming Tuesday) and arranged to take my car in to see what that weird noise is that it's been making (that'll be Wednesday). I also see my dietician this week (on Thursday), so it'll be a week of appointments.

I took a few good walks this week, but then it snowed, and boom, no more walks. We should get some good melting this week, though, so maybe I can go out again. Still haven't tried out my new YakTrax.

***

OK, so what am I looking at this coming week?

• Making the family calendar online at Shutterfly
  
• Decorating the tree
• A little more shopping, but no urgency
  
• Three appointments (Tues, Wed, Thurs)
  
• Basic cleaning, cooking dinner
  
• Maybe one batch of cookies. At least plan out the rest of my baking, buy ingredients
• Taking the mouthpiece of Teen A's trombone to the music store because I somehow forgot it when I dropped off the rest of the trombone!
  

It looks totally doable (although the trombone thing is annoying). We went from panic to fairly calm in one week. Happy December!