Best intentions
My plan all day was to take some pictures of our house decorated for Christmas and share them with you. Obviously I never got around to it. It's kind of how this whole month has gone... me having great plans and then never having them materialize. I'm taking deep breaths and reevaluating what actually needs to get done and what is optional. It probably won't surprise you that more and more is becoming optional. It's not dire, just a case of biting off more than I could chew. My free time with these small girls is not as extensive as I imagine it to be sometimes.
I've also come to a great revelation. (Maybe everyone else has already figured this out, but it's new to me.) I don't have to do everything in the month of December! Now, I already know I don't have to do everything, but some activities I have so tied to the month of December that it really didn't occur to me that we could do them at other times. Take gingerbread houses for example. We have made them every so often and everyone loves to make them. (Plus, I have a really good recipe for gingerbread that makes excellent houses because it becomes very, um, sturdy, when cool.) Why do we have to make them in December? What about them makes them a specifically Christmas activity? They're not exactly relevant to Jesus' birth after all. So I have decided to postpone gingerbread to the month of January. I don't know about you, but January could use some special activity in it. Or how about February. It is also not a great month if you live in the northern US. I may postpone cookie decorating until then. That way we can make winter themed cookies, but add in valentine cookies as well. It also has the added benefit of separating things that are fun, but might distract from celebrating Christ's birth to another time of year.
So that's my plan and already the anxiety and vague guilt about not doing these activities with my children has abated. I still mean to get to my original plan tomorrow. If I can just find baby Jesus, so I can take a picture...
I've also come to a great revelation. (Maybe everyone else has already figured this out, but it's new to me.) I don't have to do everything in the month of December! Now, I already know I don't have to do everything, but some activities I have so tied to the month of December that it really didn't occur to me that we could do them at other times. Take gingerbread houses for example. We have made them every so often and everyone loves to make them. (Plus, I have a really good recipe for gingerbread that makes excellent houses because it becomes very, um, sturdy, when cool.) Why do we have to make them in December? What about them makes them a specifically Christmas activity? They're not exactly relevant to Jesus' birth after all. So I have decided to postpone gingerbread to the month of January. I don't know about you, but January could use some special activity in it. Or how about February. It is also not a great month if you live in the northern US. I may postpone cookie decorating until then. That way we can make winter themed cookies, but add in valentine cookies as well. It also has the added benefit of separating things that are fun, but might distract from celebrating Christ's birth to another time of year.
So that's my plan and already the anxiety and vague guilt about not doing these activities with my children has abated. I still mean to get to my original plan tomorrow. If I can just find baby Jesus, so I can take a picture...
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