The decorations are up at our local shopping center. Christmas foods are filling the shelves in the supermarket and quite frankly I'm surprised that I haven't heard a Christmas carol yet.
There's only 41 more days till Christmas and I've done absolutely nothing about it. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
And what's worse - yesterday was my #3 son's birthday and I still haven't bought his present. He knows I haven't got it but he's been in exams and it's been on the low end of the list of priorities. But I still feel bad that I haven't done it. And I haven't made him a cake. And we haven't had any birthday celebration whatsoever.
Usually I can do my best interpretation of an ostrich, put my head in the sand and pretend that it's not happening.
But with Iven still being out of action, I know that most of the Christmas prep will be over to me and I won't even be able to delegate the running around part.
So today I decided that I had to rectify some of those 'haven'ts' - the ones' relating to Luke's birthday. I bought a card. I bought a small gift (not his main one because he wants something that requires his input and a bit of research). His cake's now in the oven. And I've realised that I can't get this far behind when it comes to Christmas planning because no one will be happy if we get to Christmas and I tell them I just haven't got around to it yet.
So I've started to make a list in my head of what has to get done and that's why I'm overwhelmed. There's a list of people to buy gifts for but no inspiration for a gift for a single person on that list. There's the looming birthday of the love of my life - again no inspiration for a gift. There's about twelve rhythmic gymnastics costumes that have to be created. And I use the word created because one does not simply make a rhythmic costume. It takes a lot of time and effort and creativity.
I'm feeling a bit ill about it all.
I thought Christmas was supposed to be a time of joy and peace. Not feeling much of either of those at the moment but I've got a chance to rectify that and the first thing I need to do is write a list. Not just make a list in my head because that starts to send me all sorts of crazy. The list in my head is not tangible and seems to grow exponentially with every thought. A physical, written list has a beginning, middle and end and, best of all, can be crossed off as things get done. Seeing things being crossed off helps with the anxiety.
So here's the start of my list -
And the other thing I'll be doing to help with the pre-Christmas crazies is to run. Or to walk on the days that I'm not scheduled to run. Running is so good when it comes to helping me keep my life in balance. And sometimes it helps me come up with solutions to problems so if I write my list of people to buy for just before I run, I may come home with a comprehensive list of gifts to buy. Or I might totally forget everything by the time I get home - it's so easy to get distracted while you're running.
So now I have to come up with a way of jotting down my inspiration while I'm out. It's not weird to run with a notepad and pen is it?
PS - Just taken the cake out of the oven. New recipe. It overflowed the tin a little so the top of the cake is messed up. Thank goodness for icing - it hides a multitude of sins!.
