Bah humbug

Ugh. I always drop off the November blogging thing the last week. Because of Thanksgiving, live-in guests, and Andrew's birthday...I just don't get to the computer as much. Or too much happens and I just don't want to sort through it and make a coherent post.

This year, I am also battling a case of the Bah-humbugs. It started when Jeff brought down the Christmas stuff from the attic. We never do it until after Andrew's birthday, so Sunday it was. Except we were all exhausted from our New York trip the day before. And Andrew said, "Why bother? We aren't even going to be here for Christmas."

Why bother indeed. He has caught his mother's dreaded "must be home for Christmas" gene. I have ALWAYS wanted to be in my own house for Christmas...even as a child. Interestingly, my older sister always enjoyed the Christmases away. So it is officially a personal problem. ;)

For the record...I know this blog will make my kind mother and mother-in-law feel bad. This is not my intention. It is good for me to write it out so I can see how childish and un-Christmasy I am being.

I have to get over myself. The kids are only into the magic of Christmas for such a short time, I have to embrace this year. I have to let go of the selfish notion that I must be the bearer of Christmas greed, er, joy. Both of our parents are ridiculously generous to our kids at Christmas, which is a wonderful thing. My mother in law literally has a stocking for each of the kids that she fills each year. These things are actually a relief for us financially this year, since things are a little tight. So I am grateful. I am glad. The kids will have a wonderful, magical Christmas. I will enjoy it tremendously once it is here. But it does make me a bit bah-humbug-ish about the prep of Christmas. Since the only thing left for me to do for Christmas are the things I hate...decorating and baking. Blergh.

But onward! Today Andrew is home sick, even though he is not really sick. He came home early yesterday afternoon with a moderately high fever. His fever broke by the evening, and it hasn't come back. But this morning he is complaining of a sore throat and he isn't allowed to go back to school until he's fever free for 24 hours. So we are going to decorate today. I'm determined. It will be FUN, Goddamnit!

I wanted to get a permanent Advent thingy so I can supply the kids with a little treat each day of December. Target's are pieces of junk...junk for $30. When I realized that I couldn't find any in time, I scrambled to find the paper version. None left. We were going to go to a crafty specialty shopping area yesterday after school to look...but then Andrew got sick. No advent calendar. Blergh.

And then we got an e-mail from Andrew's elusive basketball coach. We signed him up months ago and knew the games would start in December. We had heard nothing. I sent e-mails everywhere and was told we would hear soon. We heard this morning...his first game is this Saturday. Right smack in the middle of the house tour Jeff and I were supposed to go on together. Our first date since August. I was so looking forward to it. Now I will scramble to see if our friend can watch them in the afternoon...you know, when Michael is supposed to be napping. Blergh.

Time to crank the Christmas music. Time to crack out the construction paper and make our OWN advent calendars. Time to pull out our Christmas books. Time to watch some Christmas movies. As hard as I fight it, the magic of Christmas will seep into me. I will NOT be Scrooge this year! (and after a certain little cyclical event happens this week, I'll be much more capable of cheer...)