Every year, like clockwork, the holidays sneak up on me. I always have the best of intentions for getting started early on my Christmas gift shopping, but regular old everyday life always seems so demanding that it gets back-burnered. And, yet again here I find myself with almost every weekend holding some event or something I'm involved in somehow, and little to nothing accomplished towards Christmas. It's possible I can drag out the few outside lights and wreaths this weekend, with the thought of possibly decking the house for the holidays following Turkey Day. I don't think we have near enough stuff for the outside of our house, but I also have a hard time justifying spending money on something that's going to cost money to use!
Lat year, I decided not to put my tree in my bay window. You'd have thought I had ruined, or Scrooged, my husband's entire Christmas. (Just for that, I may do the same thing again.) To get the tree in the window, I have to move a loveseat and a sofa table that I've turned into a window seat for my dog. It's not the end of the world to move it, but it does mean rearranging a large portion of the furniture in the living room, just so I can put together the pre-lit box tree, connect all the plugs buried within the tree for the lights, arrange the tree skirt, dig out the boxes of eclectic decorations, and do the decorating and garlanding of the tree all by myself. Seems to me that if I'm doing all the work, I should be allowed to decide where the tree goes!
Sorry for the brief diversion, there. Okay, gifts. I tried, rather unsuccessfully, last year to follow the credo that a blogger I read uses - Want, Need, Wear, Read. Basically meaning that each child gets 4 gifts, one from each category. So if they're smart, they'll be involved and have a large portion of the suggesting/say in what they get. And yes, I realize that makes it sound like we no longer believe in Santa Claus, but my children are all old enough to know now who it is who funds the gifts - my youngest is 12!. Also, it behooves them to provide me with ideas from all the categories, so they know that the few gifts they are getting are truly ones they want. And I don't have to stress too much, aside from creating the silly stockings that I still do for them.
My daughters both take after me in that they are heavy readers, although they also like to watch television series on their laptops. My son took a while to nudge and encourage into reading. We had to find a series that he would be interested in, yet would challenge him - then he took off. We bought him a Nook for his last birthday, and if I'm not careful, he'll badger me constantly about buying books for him on it! Fortunately, to buy ebooks, we have to enter in not only the IP address, but a password to verify the purchase of EACH and EVERY book he buys. So we've got total control over his purchases. However, for gifts, I'd rather get legitimate in-your-hand books or paperbacks to wrap.
Then there are the rest of the family members - the Mister's family, my family, and our two grandchildren. How do I limit gifts there? I think I got three apiece for them last year, because I didn't want to overwhelm them and compete with the other grandparents or even with their OWN parents. But this year I'm scrabbling for ideas. Guess I'll just have to reach out to their parents and find out suggestions. Boring, I know, but it seems what I'm reduced to every year. I don't want to buy something that's NOT wanted, and I want to make sure that what I do buy will be of use to them - be it fun or functional.
GAH. I can put myself into such a tailspin over the holidays. I don't even need anyone else to help - just give me the topic, and watch me mentally run myself right into the ground. Good thing I have SLH (Santa's Little Helper) still available to go shopping with me! Santa's too busy doing other stuff this time of year - the show belongs to Mrs. Claus. Mrs. Claus being me!
No comments:
Post a Comment