Holiday blues

I have not been feeling the Christmas spirit this year.

It started pretty far back. Two weeks before Thanksgiving (which I hosted for the first time ever, quite successfully, I might add), I was already telling Josh that we didn’t need to worry about getting our Christmas tree during Thanksgiving weekend. Josh was kind of stunned. Growing up, my family ALWAYS got our Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend, on Black Friday, if I remember correctly, and I am always so antsy to get our Christmas tree as soon as Thanksgiving has passed. It’s my favorite Christmas tradition, closely followed by baking oodles of Christmas cookies and putting them in my grandmother’s cookie tins. And while Josh and I usually worked on Black Friday before we had the kids, we would be at the tree farm on Thanksgiving Saturday by 10 a.m. to beat all the other slackers (in my opinion, or early birds, in Josh’s opinion) to pick out our tree. 

But this year we were hosting two events during Thanksgiving weekend, and attending another one in between those two, and trying to fit the tree in there seemed too ambitious. So we got the tree the next weekend, but we still weren’t in a hurry to decorate it. We didn’t bring our Christmas CDs down from storage until Friday. We haven’t watched any Christmas movies. I didn’t bake any cookies until Saturday when I had a party to take them to. (We ended up not going to two Christmas parties this weekend because of a stomach bug.) And I’m still only halfway done my shopping with a week left until Christmas.

And then there are Christmas cards. Last year Josh said that he doesn’t like sending out photo Christmas cards with just the kids’ pictures because he wants us all to be on there as a family. He said he was willing to pay for a family portrait session, but I wasn’t feeling it this year (I’m extremely non-photogenic even when I DO feel like I can naturally smile) and he didn’t bring it up so it fell to the wayside. In fact, I decided I didn’t want to send any Christmas cards at all, because I don’t feel like writing in them, and I make a point to write an actual individual message to each recipient. Remember, before Christmas cards were personal photos, they had WORDS that communicated MESSAGES to the people we sent them to? As a words person, that part is kind of important to me.

I felt like all I could write this year was “We’re still alive. Love, The Knauers.” But then our cat Pansy died, so I felt like I’d have to make it “We’re still alive (except Pansy). Love, The Knauers.” But that’s not really the cheery sentiment people want to see in a Christmas card. Although if I received a card like that, I would probably laugh out loud.

I’ve just been “glum” lately. I’m choosing that word because it sounds like gum that you’ve already stepped in. I might not seem bad to you, because I’m extremely goal-oriented and able to accomplish many things even in depression. I believe strongly in forward motion. In fake-it-till-you-make-it. In “And this too shall pass.” But as many a person has expressed before, those things don’t seem to work during the holidays.

A friend suggested I might need a Carrie Day to take a break, and I admitted I had not had a Carrie Day since May. Sure, there were a couple of days where I asked Josh if he could watch the kids while I went for a pedicure or ran more than two errands at once, and he said “take your time, enjoy yourself,” but every time I leave the house, I feel there’s a stopwatch counting down how long I’ve been gone. I’m wondering if Josh is getting the kids down for nap on time, and predicting the hell that will be experienced around 5:30 p.m. if they don’t actually get a nap.

I had a mini break-down some time before Thanksgiving, and I told Josh that during my next Carrie Day, should I ever have one, I planned to drive to West Virginia for the day because I feel like I need to be THAT far away in order to not feel pressured to come home. Josh is amazing. He seriously told me to take Thanksgiving Sunday and go book myself a night in a hotel, in West Virginia if need be, and not come back until I was ready Monday. But I couldn’t do that at the holidays. Not to mention that most businesses are closed Sundays and Mondays so I would probably be eating meals in a Burger King and looking through windows of cute shops that I can't go in. I thought about doing something close to home by myself, this wreath-decorating class at a local winery I enjoy, but I didn’t want to do it enough to commit.

And so this weekend I broke down again. Josh offered me a Carrie Day—even better, a two-night trip that he and the kids are going to take without me to his mom so I can just BE. This feels much more acceptable than me taking a trip somewhere by myself (though that might be a 2019 goal, I just need some time to give myself permission for it). I already had three social events planned during that time, but I will be completely in control of my schedule, my comings and goings, my ratio of seeing other people to being alone. If Josh doesn't get the kids down for nap, it will be his hell to experience, not mine. I will be able to live like no one is waiting to interrupt my every thought or task. And like Carrie Bradshaw said in an episode of “Sex in the City,” if I want to stand at the kitchen counter looking at fashion magazines eating jelly on saltines, I can. Though my preference is ice cream for breakfast and watching a movie any time I want, even if I only watch part of it. I can play music as loud as I want in the car, and no two year old is going to tell me “I don’t like this song.” No five year old is going to have a 45-minute fight with me about not wanting to drink his milk. And practically, I can get out all the stocking stuffers I’ve bought and see if the stockings are going to be full or not. And wrap presents while watching “Pride and Prejudice” and not need to be done by the time nap time is over.

I thought I was going to review my “18 for 2018” list in this post, but I’m going to save that for later. I hope you’re having a better than "just alive" holiday, and if not, know you’re not alone.