Bummer

I have always loved Christmas. I love picking out gifts for people, decorating the house, making candy and baking, the whole build-up to the actual day. I spend weeks saying to Big K, with a child-like, obnoxious lisp, "It's almost Christhmus Marning." I call myself Santa W***. I like the church services. I like everything about the season. I run around on Christmas crack every year from the day after Thanksgiving onward. I reminisce about Christmas moments all year long, like last year when I got Big K a bike and put a big bow on it, and when he saw it, he very cutely said, "Santa brought somebody a bike!" all innocent and truly childlike, and I got to tell him it was for him. I am a Christmas Person. I annoy people. This year, I am so not feeling it. You'd think that with a "Baby's 1st Christmas" to add to the mix, I'd be running around high as a kite. Instead, for the first time in my life, I feel kind of sad. And I really don't know why. Perhaps it's the global warming temperatures and lack of snow. Christmas decorations look so ugly against a backdrop of dead grass. Perhaps it's because Auntie Hode is far away. Perhaps it's because we bought our tree pre-cut instead of going on an expedition to cut one ourselves. I don't know. I just feel like I'm forcing myself to do all the stuff I usually do this time of year, but it's no fun. I made my arm-long list of cookies and candies that I wanted to make, and I'm slogging through it while Phook naps, but I'm not pleased to see a sheet of finished cranberry pistachio bark in my refrigerator. I just cross "cranberry pistachio bark" off my list and check Phook to see if I have time to sneak something else in. (Is it a good thing that I am self-aware enough to realize that my sweatpants are the only thing keeping me from being Bree Van De Kamp (excuse me, Bree Hodge))? Maybe that's it. Maybe I am just trying to do all the pre-kid stuff that no one would attempt post-kid. Or maybe it's the finances. As I've kind of mentioned before, the K Family is cruising for a major economic change. Like attempting to live off slightly more than a third of our pre-existing income. The hot water heater breaks, the check engine light is on, the ceiling fan breaks, everyone is getting wisdom teeth yanked, and why in the hell does this sort of crap have to happen now? I like to be able to spoil my loved ones at Christmas time. No one in my family ever really has a lot of money to spend on themselves, and I like being able to do it for them at Christmas, because they so deserve it. I realize it is shallow and crappy to boil it down to quantity/quality of gifts, because that's not what the season is about, but I was wrapping some gifts tonight, and I got kinda sad at what was there. I'm not going to blow my sister's socks off with an unexpected Nano this year, just for shits and giggles. That sucks. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know. I just feel like hell. Christmas shopping was no fun. It's pretty much done now, but it was no fun. I have a grocery bag full of chocolate candy coating that still has to coat shit. Normally, Big K likes to bake (I'm not making this up) and we spend a day or two baking stuff and eating the frosting until we both gray out from the sugar and have to take a great big afternoon nap to recover. This upcoming one is the last real pre-Christmas weekend, and Big K is gonna be sporting a head the size of a beachball from having 5 teeth viciously jacked out of his head, and something tells me that playing with a candy thermometer is not going to be his idea of a good time. I'm just not ready for Christmas. I need more time. I've been busy learning how to be a mom, not painstakingly combing the 897 catalogs I've received, searching for perfect gifts. I just throw all catalogs directly in the trash these days, because Lord knows that if I can't get to my US Weekly, I can't get to Lands' End's cashmere bonanza book, or whatever the hell it is. There is also always some Big K family drama related to holiday event scheduling, and that sucks my ars too. And then this year Big K's stepmom suggested I make prime rib for dinner on Christmas Eve. Excellent, I thought...the perfect meal for someone without a) time and b) money but with a c) infant. I am not making prime rib.

You know, I hate this post. I so hate when people whine about holiday stress, because if you are stressing over the holidays, you are totally missing the point of them. It's late at night, and I'm tired. Despite there being no chance of precipitation tonight, I really hope it snows. I would feel better if it would just snow.