Well Thank Goodness That is Over..

Well, Christmas is done for another year, you will hear no complaints from me. I am not a Christmas person, I prefer Halloween, because it is a holiday you can choose not to participate in if you wish, but if you tell someone that you are not in the Christmas spirit they look at you like you just said you enjoy clubbing baby seals. While I did not send out cards this year, or go full out on decorating the house so that it could appear in this months addition of "North Pole Beautiful", I did suck it up, put on a happy face and greeted everyone who attended our festivities of the day with a Merry Christmas and a hug. It didn't help my disposition that I had had only perhaps 5 hours of sleep (I put off wrapping gifts until I could not any longer, which was, uhhh..Christmas Eve of course) and was suffering from a horrible cold. So by the end of the day, everyone was telling me how bad I looked (gee, thanks and I bothered to put on makeup this morning and all) and that I should go have a lie down, they wouldn't hold it against me. I just smiled and acknowledged that I did feel like crap on a cracker, but I would lay down after everyone went home. Yay me, I made it through the day!! So this morning as I finish getting my kitchen back into pre-holiday shape, I of course thought about the day and realized that it wasn't so bad after all. This year was the first Christmas in a while that my angsty teenager said she liked all of her gifts, when usually I have to hear about how she either didn't receive what she wanted or Santa had brought her the wrong kind of whatever it was she had requested. Now there is a Christmas miracle, if there was ever one. Everyone left with a smile on their faces and a full tummy so, all-in-all it was a reason for the season kind of day and not the day of gloom and doom I had envisioned or dreaded since Thanksgiving day. So, now comes the time to prepare for the New Year of 2012.

Our friends, the Mayans scratched out on a pile of stone that was their calendar that this would be our final year. What a positive way to start a new year! I'm ignoring them and their cheerful prophecy and diving right into 2012 with both feet. I received 2 calendars this year, they are only two of the four that I keep. I have one in the kitchen, that one is the master calendar, for all. If you want to know what you are doing on any given day of any given month my family knows that is the place to check. The one in my dining room, if for the angsty teen, so that she doesn't have to look at those unimportant dates, like dentist appointments, the start of daylight savings time or mom's birthday. My phone has a calendar with an alarm (yes all appointment alarms are scheduled to go off 10 minutes prior to when I need to actually be somewhere) and the one by my desk in my office is for add-on items, like band booster meetings, or bake sales, and at the beginning of the month is synchronized with the master calendar. All birthdays, holidays, competitions, and baby sitting days through the month of May have been added to these calendars so obviously, the world cannot end this year, because I have not scheduled for it.  

So how will we be ringing in the New Year? Finger foods, immediate family, and a rousing game of Monopoly to help keep us awake, a glass of bubbly and kisses all around at midnight as we watch our neighbors ignite hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks. It's what we do every year. Who needs that whole getting dressed up and dealing with the intoxicated drivers on the road. It's our tradition and a winter holiday that doesn't cause me to break out into nervous hives, I wish every holiday could be like New Years Eve.

Happy holidays, and New Year to you and your's from me and mine. Bring on 2012!

Until next time... ME