December 17th aka The Week Before Christmas

It’s not unusual for me to go back and read old blog posts when I am putting together a TWiP post on the weekend. But in the middle of a random Tuesday? It’s a lot less likely for me to be visiting my blog at all, let alone reading old posts.

But today, somehow I found myself here, and I noticed that I blogged every December 17th between 2007 and 2016. Not only that, but most of those week-before-Christmas posts said the same things:

• I hadn’t really thrown myself into Christmas preparation yet
• It was time to make a list and figure out what I still needed to do
• I was still perfectly calm, but looking forward to my annual meltdown sometime in the following week 😜

For all of those years, I was a WAHM, and I had just closed my online shop for the year, and was getting ready to make merry in earnest.

I can’t help but notice that the years I didn’t blog on this date are the first two years I was working full time for someone other than myself. Both of those years, I’m pretty sure I never did fire up the Christmas spreadsheet. I just winged it and hoped for the best. It worked out ok. Neil took up most of the slack of getting the house ready for company, and shopping for the kids.

I was glad to have him do the housework, but I actually like shopping for the kids. It’s a bit of a disappointment to not be at the helm of that job.

So, I could choose to approach this year the same way as the previous two, but I’d rather not. I think I may actually start making lists again. Tonight.

As you can see from the images in this post, I cleaned up the living room and got Tacky Santa back into his spot this past weekend. It took longer to start that job than I’d intended, but then this month just seems to be screaming by. I am honestly having trouble wrapping my brain around how it could be December 17th already. If that’s not a sign that I really need to make a list and get going on stuff, I don’t know what is.

Thank goodness we’re not hosting any parties this year!

How about you? Are your preparations humming along like a well-oiled machine? Or will you be gulping down a peppermint mocha Frappuccino and sobbing in your car on December 23rd (like I may or may not have done in previous years) 🤣