All I Want For Christmas...is to stop

My birthday is next week. Christmas: a mere 14 days away.

And all I want most is to slow down a little bit.

Enjoy myself.

Stop with the to-do lists and pending items and general busy-ness.

The tree has been up for nearly 2 weeks now, and I have barely enjoyed it.

I have forced myself to listen to Christmas music twice.

The second time, I turned it off in a huff because it was just adding noise in my already-noisy house and I couldn't hear the shouts of: "Mommyyyyy....how do you spell 'Grandmaaaaa'?"  "Mommmmmmyyy...how do you spell 'been'?l"

 

I don't even do that much: my kids are not currently in sports. There are few afterschool activities. I have a small social circle, and thank God, no more medical obligations with family members.

I don't do that much.

I just do Life.

 

Life with 2 small boys.

Life as a teacher whose job feels more stressful and less pure everyday.

Life as a wife of a husband who I barely spend Quality Time with Monday-Friday, in spite of the fact that we work together.

Life as a woman who likes things "just so" and puts an awful lot of demands on herself on how things "should be."

 

I can't seem to keep up with the crumpled up list of pending Christmas Responsibilities that's mocking me from the bottom of my ridiculously messy purse.

 

How come all the Christmas commercials on TV are about hot chocolate and carols and family members in ivory sweaters sitting around the tree, lights flickering, laughing? Does anyone really live like that during the month of December?

 

And then of course, there is the self-inflicted pressure (I can probably search that phrase--self-inflicted pressure--on this blog and find it...repeatedly) of knowing that Christmas is coming...it's practically here!...and I have not enjoyed it. And that, perhaps, is at the heart of the problem: I want to enjoy it...like I did when I was a little kid, in my parents' house, an entire month of doing little else but anticipate and revel.

 

So for Christmas (and my birthday) all I want is to slow down. Take a few breaths. Sit. Laugh with my husband and my boys. Take it all in. Do nothing.