Christmas Blues

So it's been a while. I haven't blogged here lately because, well, I just haven't felt like talking about my struggles to get through this time of year. But the truth is that it is something of a struggle, for Matt and I both. Today is the anniversary of my mom-in-law's passing (we think, since we're not sure exactly when she passed away; but it's close enough), so there's that. We miss her, and Rob, and our holiday traditions that revolved around them. This month also marked the second anniversary of my first MC, and the fact that we're still childless is weighing on us and making it really difficult to get in to the Christmas spirit. We trimmed our tree over the weekend, and that was mostly an exercise in tears and grief, as every ornament I hung either reminded me of a loss or of what we don't have.

To make matters worse, although my business has thankfully picked up, we racked up so much credit card debt during the lean months that we're still just treading water. So not only is Christmas shopping extremely limited, but we're also asking ourselves hard questions about whether it's smart or responsible to start TTC in January as we'd been planning to. I really don't know what to do. Where we're at right now, we would qualify for state aid for my medical care if I became pregnant, but we're not really comfortable with that. We don't know how we'd afford it out of pocket, though. I know we should take some time and try to pay off some of our debts before trying to have a baby, but my clock is ticking away and I'm feeling desperate to hurry up and get started, as every year older I get the greater the risks to both me and and any babies I manage to conceive, not to mention the more difficult it becomes to conceive in the first place.

So that's where my headspace is at right now -- a big mix of past grief and an uncertain future, facing the prospect of putting our dream on hold even longer. I'm praying my way through it and doing my best to trust God, but even so it's not helping me to feel very merry or Christmasy. I think the past two Christmases have us both too primed for grief and to expect badness to be able to just relax and enjoy this time of year.

Merry Cute-mas

At least one of us managed to have a merry Christmas yesterday.

We hope your Christmas made you as happy as a puppy with a meat lollipop.

Christmas Eve

Right now, my Christmas fantasy is that tomorrow Matt and I will sleep in as late as we want, wake up and do coffee and presents, and then spend the rest of the day in our PJs, snuggled on the couch watching movies and noshing on Christmas goodies, not having to leave the house for anything. Just resting.

But in reality we have to keep up what's become our daily routine of going to the apartment and then going to see Rob. We need to go to the apartment to gather the rest of Rob's things, and then go have Christmas with him at the nursing home and, hopefully, get him out of there for a little while and feed him some proper Christmas dinner.

That place is so depressing, you guys. I know beggars can't be choosers, but, dang. The staff seems friendly enough, but it's a depressing atmosphere. Rob has to have a roommate, and his half of the room, which is tiny, has no window, and the only window in the room is blocked by the curtain separating his half from his roommate's. We'll get some pictures on the wall and try to brighten it up for him, but it's so dreary there. We're both wishing so hard that there was another option. Rob is a survivor, and he's managing to maintain a pretty good attitude, all things considered, but he's seriously hurting. His entire world has been yanked out from under him, and I just wish we could do more to make it easier for him.

Right now we just need to focus on getting through tonight. It's been our Christmas Eve tradition to go over to Mom and Rob's, where she would make Chef Boyardee pizza, and we'd hang out and exchange gifts and watch old movies and eat pizza. We're missing that tradition, and we're missing Mom's pizza, but mostly, of course, we're missing Mom. Christmas Eve isn't supposed to hurt so much.

A Very Bauhaushold Christmas

We had already decided to stay home for Christmas. The original plan was to go to my mom's house, but I realized that it's hard enough for us to be around babies and small children right now without having to force Christmas cheer on top of it. I know I have to get over that some time, not the least of which because I love and miss my wee nieces and nephews; but neither of us had any desire to spend Christmas day pretending to be happy when the constant reminder of what we lost meant we were both dying a little inside. And so, we didn't have to suffer disappointment when we ended up being snowed in on Christmas day, anyway.

It was a lovely, peaceful day.  I woke up before Matt and spent the morning in quiet reflection as I read the accounts in Matthew and Luke of Christ's birth and the events leading up to it. It was nice to be able to take the time out and remember what the day was really about, instead of rushing to get out the door. Then, after a prayer of gratitude, I fired up A Christmas Story and settled in to wait for Matt to get up.

Once he did, it was present time. First we gave the pets their stocking goodies, and much cuteness abounded:

Then it was the hoomans' turn. Even though we had pretty much stuck to each others' Amazon wish lists this year, I still managed to surprise Matt with some Clark bars (he'd been craving them recently and we haven't been able to find any around here), and he surprised me with a cook book I'd wish listed over a year ago and then forgot about. He also got me a couple of books I've been dying to read, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which, YAY!

After that, it was decision time: we'd bought advanced tickets to a late afternoon showing of Sherlock Holmes, but that was before our yard turned into Planet Hoth:

So between the dangers of getting eaten by a Hoth Wampa and getting stranded (or worse) on the icy roads, we decided to cut our losses and stay home. To me, it was worth the ticket price not to have to dig the car out from under a snow drift, anyway.

So Matt put our Christmas turkey in the oven (after doing his gourmet magic to it) and we hung out and read our Christmas presents and watched our current Netflix pic (Terminator: Salvation, which I liked better than I expected to after seeing how much it was panned) until the bird was done, and then we had ourselves a cozy (and delish!) little Christmas dinner. Then we had pie. And then we read some more until bed time.

It was about as close to a perfect day as it gets.

How was your Christmas?

Season's Greetings

A Dash of Cheer

Things have been so gloomy here lately that I thought I'd interject a little cheer by sharing a shot of our Christmas tree. We went with a smaller one this year, which makes it look like we have a million ornaments, and as you can see, our "theme" is Anything Goes. The tree topper (the cross from our wedding cake that you can see here) is cut off, but this was the only shot with Boudica looking straight at the camera. The little bells around the bottom of the tree (also an artifact from our wedding) serve as "Cats are eating the tree again!" alarms, and they serve well.

If you'd like to see close-ups of some of the ornaments, you can probably find them in last year's Christmas House Tour.

Do you have any uploaded pics of your holiday swag? If so, link us up in the comments.

Getting Over Me

Somewhere around the time all the good children were pretending to go to sleep so that Santa could come, I realized I was in good spirits. We had just left my in-laws, where I had managed to have a nice time in spite of myself, and I felt relaxed and pleasant, and that's when it hit me: the mini-epiphany that I not only should, but could stop dwelling on what I hoped to get out of the holiday, stop thinking ahead and hoping and wishing, stop thinking back on things that had already let me down, and just accept--possibly even enjoy!--each moment as it comes. Roll with the punches, as it were. So that's what I did. And you know what? I ended up having a pretty nice Christmas.

Was it the Christmas card-worthy Christmas I had built up in my head? No. Of course not. It never, ever is, ever. Which is why I need to learn to stop putting impossible expectations on the holiday, on all holidays, because that is my tendency, and on my family, and on myself. You hear it over and over, how you need to learn to let go, to just be, to take each moment as it comes. For some reason, I just can't ever do that.

But yesterday, I did that. And it was so very, very nice, being able to stop being all wrapped up inside my head, being able to focus on my loved ones, catching up, hearing the family gossip, hugging and kissing on the babies that have gotten OH MY GOSH SO BIG since the last time I saw them, playing with my little nephews, geeking out over geeky things with my big nephews, hearing Bible readings and singing Christmas hymns, coming home to open presents with my husband and torture our pets with strap-on reindeer antlers for hilarious pictures, snuggle and watch the DVDs we got for Christmas, eat more delicious food and drink the pricey booze that Santa brought, and finally go to bed, stuffed and a little hung-over and happy. Yes, happy. It wasn't what I was expecting two days ago, but that's one expectation I'm glad not to have met.

Blue Christmas

It has happened. All month long I've been in a cheerful mood, too distracted by everything I needed to get done to have time to think. But now things are winding down, and I'm finding time for that most dangerous thing, introspection. Introspection rarely, if ever, makes me happy, especially around holidays. That's probably because I always focus on the things that disappoint, instead of on the things I have to be happy about and grateful for. And then I have guilt and shame, because I know I have plenty to be grateful for, like a job and a mortgage in good standing and the luxury of being able to afford gifts for my loved ones, who can still afford gifts for me in return, and all of that's just for starters, and now I'm sorry it's too late to pick an angel from the Angel Tree.

But disappointment nags. Worse yet, I can't put my finger on what, exactly, is disappointing me. It's a number of little things, really. Little unmet expectations all adding up to one big empty feeling, a feeling that makes me not want to get out of bed, let alone wrap presents and bake and put on a happy face for the family. Going to the mall yesterday didn't help. I think a shopping mall right before Christmas must be one of the circles of Hell. It's impossible to shop there for any length of time without becoming stressed and angry, and with the mall traffic and the parking situation, the anger and stress starts before you even get inside. And then I have more guilt and shame, because I know that Christmas isn't about presents or tree trimming or surviving the mall, or even hanging out with family. I'm a Christian. I know what tomorrow is supposed to be about. But I'm not feeling it. And that's just one more unmet expectation to add to the heap.

So I go through the motions, and hope that faking it will at some point make it so. If that doesn't, then maybe copious amounts of fudge and spiked eggnog will make it happen, at least for a few minutes. Sweet little sugar and alcohol-induced bursts of happiness to get me through the day. Maybe that's what this commercialized First World brand of Christmas is really all about.

Stopping the Insanity

Every year, of course, I make a pledge to myself that I will be vigilant, I will make preparations all year long, I will not let another Christmas sneak up on me and turn me into a frazzled wreck trying to accomplish the impossible in an impossible amount of time. And every year, of course, I promptly forget said pledge until I'm looking up from unwrapping a piece of Halloween candy and going, "Buh? Christmas is less than two months away? That's unpossible! You are crazy in the head." And then the insanity begins, and the whole thing starts all over again.

This year has been no different. For the last two months, most of my spare time's been spent working my poor, frozen fingers to the bone on knitting projects that I should have started in July. My Christmas vacation began Saturday, and my visions of baking and lazy gift wrapping vanished when I remembered I still needed to do Christmas cards and to drive out to my mom's to pick up my husband's gifts that I didn't trust him not to open if I had them shipped here, and to shop for gifts for the people for whom I will not possibly have time to knit the gifts I'd originally planned, and, oh yes, to finish the knitting I already started. So far, my vacation has been not so much a vacation as a blur of activity and panic.

How do I cope with all of this panic? Hot cocoa with copious amounts of Dr. McGillicuddy's Mint Schnapps certainly hasn't hurt. Nor has the fact that knitting is something I can do with my feet up while Nightmare Before Christmas plays on a loop to keep me company. Mostly, I keep my mind in place by carving out "me" time wherever I can get it. An extra five minutes in the shower, going to bed early, sleeping in, eating regularly and mostly right, taking time out to shave and moisturize and pamper and take good care of myself. It's not easy to do that. Instead, it's incredibly easy to forget to do any of that. Today I even forgot to eat. That is some serious forgetting right there, if you're me, if you love eating like I do. But it's important to remember these things, and to do them. These are the things that make last-minute preparations bearable, even when all of your preparations end up being last-minute. These are also the things that make it possible, when all of those preparations are finally done, to relax and enjoy the company of your friends and relatives and not end up a sniveling mess on the floor of your mother's master bathroom trying to fend off a nervous breakdown on Christmas day.

But you might want to go ahead and bring Dr. McGillicuddy along to mom's house, just in case.

Shiny, shiny lists

Cross-polinate my neurotic affinity for making lists with my love of all things pretty and shiny and DIY, and what do you have? A new obsession with A Print a Day and all of the lovely, lovely free list and other stationery templates posted there. The artist also fills a more timely need with holiday prints, like adorable gift tags & stickers, and of course, a Christmasy list pad for keeping all of your last-minute gift shopping straight.

Now if only my printer wasn't all out of colored ink. I guess I should add that to my shopping list.

Insanity

I know, I know. I just declared an end to a hiatus and a start to a brand new blogging attitude, and a mere week later here I am about to declare a hiatus again. But this is just a small hiatus. Mini, really. Just for this week, because my job just handed me an insane amount of work to do in a conversely yet equally insane amount of time, before I start my vacation and escape from all of this insanity. And my "free" time is still devoted to an insane amount of knitting that must be done, insanely, by Christmas. And so my oh-so-painfully slim allotments of blog time this week will be spent having another go at that whole moving to a new URL thing that was such a failure last week. If the blog disappears off the face of the internet again, that will be why.

I will be back and blogging when all of this insanity ends, or when my vacation begins, whichever happens first. If it makes you feel better, you can count down the days with this. Or, y'know, count down to Christmas, which is what it's really for. Or just stop and marvel at the awesome beauty of the universe. Whatever floats your boat.

I know why those people in that sleigh are laughing all the way. It's because trying to get everything done on time during the Christmas season drove them completely bonkers.

Bet you thought I was going to say "insane."

13 Simple & Inexpensive DIY Holiday Decorations

1. How to Make a Cookie House Village using graham crackers. No baking required. 2. Paper Flower Ornaments - beautiful, and all you need is some colored paper, a stapler, and some double-stick tape. 3. Origami Gift Box - These do double duty by looking pretty under the tree until you give them away. 4. Plastic Grocery Bag Pom Poms - This one is pretty versatile, too. And I love a holiday craft that reduces waste. 5. How to Make a Snow Storm - Tired of the old-fashioned paper snow flake? Whip up your very own White Christmas. 6. Make a Large Snowflake out of Doilies - On the other hand, do you love the old-fashioned paper snow flake but can never make it come out quite right? Dollar store doilies to the rescue! 7. Paper-craft Gift Card Box - Download this free pattern for an impressively beautiful way to present gift cards. 8. How To - Recycled Paper Trees - recycle old magazines into lovely and colorful mini Christmas trees. 9. Whip Up a Minimalist Christmas Star - Turn a bunch of sticks into something both artful and meaningful in minutes. 10. Have the Greenest Tree Around - These old-fashioned food garlands are not only classics, they're also good for the environment. 11. Chocolate Andes Mint Tree - Speaking of things that are green and edible. And also yum. 12. Tutorial: Fabric Ornament - I remember making these in grade school. This version is all grown up and beautiful. 13. DIY Photo Ornaments in 15 Minutes or Less - Display your favorite photos on your tree in an unexpected fashion. It doesn't get any easier than this.

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Oh knitting ball wreath, won't you please be mine?

I am so very much in love with this wreath that I want to take it out for dinner and drinks and then make passionate love to it all night long and then cuddle with it afterward. Then later, feel really let down after it promises to call but leaves me hanging to remember that I am really not creative at all, and that I need other crafty people to come up with really fabulous ideas for me, because I would never think to do this in a million, billion, kajillion years, that is how not creative I really am.

And yet, it's so simple. But that's what makes it so brilliant. Just some Christmas ornaments and balls of yarn, in colors I want to eat like candy and adorned with knitting needles so fancy I would never want to stop knitting with them. It's beautiful. And I want to go home and make one right now.

Thanks to ThreadBanger, who has a lovely roundup of other gorgeous, inventive and whimsical DIY wreaths.

Christmas Vacation

I'm taking the next week off to chill and try to reconnect with what's important.

I hope y'all get to do the same. Have a great holiday.

I think I forgot how to blog.

I think I also forgot how to do Christmas. I seem to be in denial that the Christmas season is here. I have yet to make a single list, for gifts, cards, or otherwise, and no idea what I'm going to get anybody, or for that matter even what I hope to receive. I don't have any Christmas knitting projects going because I'm still working on that dagnab sweater I started way back in July for my sister's birthday (this is why I don't often do sweaters). Christmas exploded all over my mother's house, with red and/or green and/or twinkly colored lights and/or faux-pine garlands and bows and wreaths and/or nativity sets and/or shiny Santa figurines everywhere you look. But upstairs, our part of the house is such a chaotic mess that the only reason any Christmas decorations are up is because we never got around to taking them down from last year, and they've pretty much faded into the background of our perception by now.

And the thought of Christmas shopping makes me want to crawl into bed and sleep until St. Patrick's Day.

I wouldn't say it's holiday depression or even ennui--it's just not sinking through my thick skull that Christmas is here already. It feels too soon. It feels like summer just ended. It's still relatively warm here, even, at least for the most part. All of this Christmas-ness surrounding me feels surreal and out of place, and it's making ME feel surreal and out of place.

Maybe this is just what happens when you keep your head buried in your own novel for all of November. Maybe I just need to go get a peppermint latte and listen to some Christmas carols and watch Rudolph and drink some 'nog and get acclimated to the fact that 2007 is practically over already. Maybe I need to go home and plug in the Christmas lights that have been hanging unlit all year.

I mean, it's December already, you guys! When did that happen?

How Do I Suck?

Here's how:

Christmas e-Cards I meant to send: 6

I was going to send them Friday afternoon, knowing full well that everybody with any vacation time left would be taking off early and leaving me with plenty of downtime until 5:00. But then at 2:00 a company-wide e-mail announced that they were closing the office RIGHT NOW and asked us to please leave, k'thx. Merry Christmas! Get out! I barely had time to throw an irreverent Christmas video on the blog in between frantically texting Matt to please hurry up and come get me.

Christmas e-cards actually sent: 0

Christmas phone calls I meant to make: 5

Matt's Scrooge company made him work on Christmas day. That sucked in a lot of ways, but I consoled myself with plans to use the time between the family who showed up for Christmas dinner calling it a day and Matt coming home to catch up with people I haven't talked to in forever (fennie and sunny, you guys were top of the list). But then one nephew Ash, age three-and-a-half, decided that he wanted me, and ONLY me, to play with him and his new Thomas the Tank Engine Duplo set. And play "boingy" (a "game" where I lie on my back and bounce him in the air on my ankles until my legs just can't take it anymore). And play "horsey" (self-explanatory, I hope). And play a half-dozen other exhausting games that I felt I couldn't say no to, since I hardly ever see the kid since I went back to work full-time. By the time he and the rest of the company said goodbye, I had to go lie down "for a few minutes," which turned out to be about three hours.

Christmas phone calls I actually made: 0

Hand-knitted Christmas gifts I meant to give: 3

Early November I started a sweater for my husband, a scarf for my S-I-L, and planned to make her an accompanying pair of mittens. At least I finished the scarf.

Hand-knitted Christmas gifts finished and given: 1

Christmas Dinner side dishes I meant to contribute: 1

Mom asked me to make the roasted cauliflower recipe I got from Keckler, and I agreed. Then by the time Matt and I exchanged our gifts, I saw him off to work and got dressed and ready for my day, I headed down to Mom's kitchen only to see that she had already prepped the cauliflower and stuck it in the oven.

Christmas Dinner contributions I made: 0, unless you count introducing the recipe in the first place. And the "recipe" is so simple that I don't really feel too guilty for not handling it fast enough for Mom's liking.

Unhealthy Christmas treats consumed: 50 bazillion jillion.

And now I'm off to the gym.

How do you make Rudolph even more un-PC?

Cross it with Pulp Fiction, that's how:



Merry Christmas, folks!

Not-fun things (and some fun things, too)

Know what's fun? Waking up at 2 AM feeling like somebody's jabbing a hot poker into your eye, that's what's fun. Wait, no... that's actually the opposite of fun. Stupid allergies. And my eye is still swollen. Bleah.

Know what else is not fun? Disillusionment destroying nostalgia, in the form of watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and really paying attention for the first time instead of merely having it on as happy holiday background static and realizing what a sexist bigot is Santa Claus. I always kind of understood that about the reindeer, but I can forgive them, because they're deer. But that is not a Santa I'd want as a role model for my kids. "Jingle jingle jangle, I'm so jolly! Now get your bitch ass in the kitchen, mama, and knit a cozy to cover up that abomination's red nose. Ho ho ho, what a freak. He can't pull my sleigh because he's different." Sheez.

And don't even get me started on Yukon Cornelius, chasing the newly crippled Abominable Snowman over the cliff just because he could. Yeah, you're lucky Bumbles bounce, you insane suicidal bastard.

At least Hermy the elf turned out to be delightfully snarky, so I'll overlook the fact that by the end he's pulling teeth and opening up a practice with no formal dentistry training whatsoever.

Speaking of awesomely un-PC cartoons of yore, Cityrag has a list of links to online videos of the animation industry's selected 50 Greatest Cartoons (via Boing Boing). It's a hard list to argue with, although I would have given The Rabbit of Seville a higher slot.

Red Toenails and Christmas Poo

On the way home last night I made a detour to Ulta, where I not only took care of all of the women on my Christmas list (save S-I-L, who's getting hand-knit goodies), but also scored myself a fancy set of gift-with-purchase hurricane candle holders and a free bottle of O.P.I. nail lacquer. Sweet! Somebody's going to be giving herself some shimmery red toenails this weekend, and that somebody will surely be me.

If the all the recent snow and my first round of Christmas shopping wasn't enough to get me in the holiday spirit, SomaFM's station Xmas in Frisco is doing a pretty good job of giving me that extra push. Because it's just not Christmas until you've heard "Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo." Obviously.

Unrelatedly, Matt and I have decided to start saving up (both money and vacation days) for a European cruise. I don't know whether we'd rather take a trans-Atlantic cruise and fly back from Europe, or fly there and back for a Mediterranean cruise, either of which would be awesome. But it'll be at least a couple of years before we're able to do it, and who knows what the choices will be by then. At any rate, it's something to shoot for, and I think it'll be a pretty good last hurrah for our coupledom before we start trying for a family and settle in for 20 years or so of domestic road trips all centered around national/theme parks.

Speaking of Matt: do you know what I'd like to write? I'd like to write a children's book that helps familiarize small children with the idea of disabled adults and helps them to react appropriately when confronted with them in public. Or better yet, helps their parents react appropriately. That would be a useful book. If I don't write it, I hope somebody out there does.

I've got some quiz- and YouTube-spam coming up later, but for now I'd better get some work done. Ciao for now.