Yep, that's me. I'm up too late (as usual) and I've had a breakthrough moment that I'm so excited about that I just had to tell someone. Guess what? You're the lucky ones!I don't know whether I've mentioned it here before or not, but some people might refer to me as driven. In fact, people who know me well might even have other, less complimentary descriptions, but let's just go with driven. Anyway, I like to get things done and I like to be efficient. If that means I sometimes take on the role of drill sergeant to make it happen, well, so be it. My family, God bless them, endures these moments fairly well. For better or worse, Christmas and all its accompanying obligations can really bring out the drill sergeant, um, I mean efficient, side of me.
As I mentioned in my last post, we're heading out of Dodge tomorrow after lunch. We won't be back until Sunday, January 3rd. I've been fretting all week long because I can't decide how to handle the Christmas tree and all the decorations. I meant to get a few photos up of our decorations but I haven't had the time/energy to take photos (but I promise I will) so you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you I have a lot of decorations. My normal plan of action is to take it all down and put it away on New Year's day but we won't be here, we'll be up at the cabin.
I know how it goes when we come home from the cabin. We create a bit of mess and chaos as we settle back in at home and so do you think I'm going to want to tackle the entire day-long decoration removal and storage project on Sunday afternoon? If you read between the lines you will see that what I'm describing is a physical impossibility given the constraints of what's commonly known as time. If I had more time right now I might share my limitations with the constraints of time but I'll save that for another day. Anyway, I like to get the decorations down and put away before we begin life after the holidays and start up with school. I like a clean look and that's just the way I've always done it in the past. However, it's a somewhat long and arduous process and it can't be accomplished in an afternoon.
As I was stressing over this (minor, I know) problem, tonight I was struck by an inspiration. Leave it up. That's right. Do something different and leave it all up until next weekend. Enjoy the decorations for one more week. Stop stressing about something so insignificant and just leave everything the way it is. Go the cabin and enjoy yourself and don't worry about a few extra needles from the Christmas tree. Can I pat my family on the back publicly here? Somehow we managed to keep the Christmas tree watered this year and so it's still really fresh and has lost hardly any needles. Woo Hoo!
So, we're heading out tomorrow and I don't have to try and stuff the tree up the chimney ala Grinch. In fact, this breakthrough will probably spare my family the wrath of the Grinch tomorrow and throughout the rest of the weekend. This feels so good I wonder why I didn't catch on earlier! Who knew? The best part is, my youngest has been asking me all through the Christmas season if we couldn't just leave the tree and decorations up until after his birthday, which is on January 6th. I kept telling him "Sorry, it aint gonna happen (okay, I'm a homeschool mom, the use of aint is banned in our home but it looked good there) and now I can say, "Happy Birthday! The tree is yours until after your birthday. Enjoy!" Who knew being a great Mom could be so easy?
For those of you sane people, this probably is not a revelation. You might even be thinking I'm off my rocker for writing a post about such nonsense but for me it really was a lightbulb moment. You never know, I may even turn over a new leaf and stop being so anal about a lot of things. Hmmmmm...
Nah, don't count on it!
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