Final Countdown

Four days until Christmas, and,

The house is decorated.
The tree is up.
Presents are purchased and wrapped. (At least those I can afford)
Cookies are baked (Most are, one batch in fridge to be baked tonight)
Traditional foods have been purchased or prepared (As much as possible)
The house is cleaned (HA! At least the living areas are!)

The only major chores left are to cook for the office party, which is tomorrow and won’t be very festive this year. The final food prep for Friday night and Saturday and my cards. Between the long extra hours I’ve been working (many 16-17 hour days) and running around doing other chores, I’ve once again not managed to get them out before Christmas. Since they had to be mailed by yesterday to be received BEFORE the 25th, my goal is to finish them on the 26th and mail them on Monday the 27th. Given my past track record, I made a point to buy some that said Happy Holidays and not Merry Christmas.

Christmas for me has changed alot the past few years. When my parents were ailing it meant trying to have a nice holiday for them at their house and still having a nice holiday for my own family. Now they are gone and having young adult children means they only ask for one or two gifts, just expensive ones. But that means one-stop shopping at an appliance/electronics store for them AND their dad this year. We no longer have my parents or my in-laws. My dad and FIL were always impossible to buy for AND my FIL’s birthday was 12/24, so that meant double the gifts for him. I certainly miss both of them, but not trying to select a good gift! We send books to all my grand-nieces and nephews. Figured some time ago that it would make a nice tradition for Aunt & Uncle to always send books… boring perhaps but reliable. They know we think of them but… My nephew lives 3000 miles away, we don’t know his kids well enough to give personal gifts, etc. and I often have to mail gifts to my niece’s children (even though they are closer) so it makes that easy too. Last year I sent Trixies to the two older girls. Thought about doing it again this year but I got no real feedback about their becoming addicted. So did something different. AND once again, one-stop shopping for six different people (they each have three kids!). Always have trouble shopping for my brother and now that our parents are gone, it’s only me to buy for him. Mentally he’s still a kid and buying a shirt or socks or whatever would be a real disappointment for him. He looks forward to a pile of packages under the tree. So he's getting a tool set, drill, warm hat/hood, Sony Walkman and a bunch of McDonald coupons. What else could I get for a 48 year-old mentally challenged man?

Baking also has become a bit simpler as my kids get older. I have a few cookies that are traditional for our family, but I’m not doing the painted ones any more. Those were so @&%$ time consuming, but the kids loved painting them. They aren’t the least bit interested in painting any more so why spend an entire day doing it by myself. Also, with less activities, I have less cookie exchanges. I had two this year I could have participated in but skipped one. Boy, did that make life easier.

So guess I’m as ready as I can be. Just wish I could be more in the spirit of the holiday. I’ve always loved Christmas, even when I feel totally stressed out about it. I love the decorations, the endless parties, the hustle and bustle of the shoppers (I even can tolerate the long lines and traffic), the wonderful church services with candles and special music, I LOVE IT ALL.

But it just won’t come this year. Initially I was afraid to spend any money, but finally decided what the heck. If I lose my job, I’ll worry about it then. I didn’t use any credit cards, etc. so there won’t be any bills coming in Jan or Feb. And the media has hounded our elected officials so much about the dirty politics that forced out my boss and other leaders, it truly would be political suicide for them to come after our department now. I figure they'll wait until it quiets down, first. Did find out that it was 5 positions that would have been eliminated, although don’t know which five. We have been forewarned that there may be personnel cuts come Jan 2006, so I guess I’ll be looking, but hopefully I’m okay for a little while. So for now, I’m trying to salvage it all and enjoy Christmas. Like Scarlet, I'll worry about it all tomorrow.

Update

I’ve been terribly remiss at posting and recently deleted several posts so it seems like I’ve commented even less than I had! Life has been totally unreal for me the past two months, leaving me feeling exhausted, depressed beyond description, and now physically ill.

Since my mom’s passing last January, I honestly fooled myself into believing that my life just might MIGHT be on track. Still don’t have any money, but I had a job I enjoyed and found rewarding and now that my kids are older and I’m not spending every weekend taking care of my folks I was beginning to actually have a social life. (My parents became ill shortly after we moved to a new state. I was just starting to feel like this was home and get active in some things when I had to resign or put everything on hold)

Why is it whenever you think things are okay….

Well the plug has been pulled on me for certain. Things are so bad at work, and I’m so paranoid about it all, I’m scared to post anything here…or anywhere. Just say that there will be MAJOR changes in my office over the next few months and right now we haven’t a clue re: what they might be. Given the current dynamics between me and my immediate supervisor, my unemployment (along with many others) is a real possibility. For now, the not knowing is much worse than anything that might occur. Once we know more, I feel I can then start making my own decisions. For now…

Thing is, with all this uncertainty, I should be working twice as hard proving how invaluable I am, but because any decisions will be based entirely on politics and now on what’s really important, it’s all but impossible to feel motivated to do ANYTHING.

There’s more to my stress than work but it’s so overwhelming I can’t begin to worry about other things! Don’t know if that’s good or bad, but that’s the way it is. So for now, I’m living day-to-day, not having a clue if I can pay for Christmas much less my son’s tuition in January.
Such is my life for now