The Calm Before the Extravaganza
Tomorrow is our annual holiday extravaganza. I think this is the Seventh Annual Extravaganza but it’s the first real one in our house! Last year’s was somewhat compromised by Snowpocalypse. I mean, we had a fantastic time with the four amazing friends who trudged through blizzard conditions to drink champagne cocktails and eat Oreo truffles and little smoked salmon sandwiches and play board games with us. But it wasn’t the usual extravaganza. I have been anxiously reading the weather report and there is NO SNOW in the forecast which is awesome because, seriously, Mother Nature would be dead to me.
I keep feeling like I should be stressed out because isn’t that how it goes at this time of year? But I’m not. I am curiously on top of things.
My Christmas postcards–which I love, and which are adorned with the cutest polar bear postcard stamps–went out this morning. I have perhaps three more Christmas gifts to buy. Last night I wrapped all of the gifts I have while listening to Rent, which is one of my favorite holiday traditions. Our house is decorated. I need to get some pics tomorrow before the party because I love our tree. It has a rather awesome mishmash of ornaments–I love anything red and spun-glass, and Steve loves bright metallic trains and rodents. And we have candles and red-tinsel-wrapped banisters and stockings.
I have my party outfit ready to go. I’m sure there will be pictures of that too because a) I am vain and b) my besties and I always take a group picture.
Our house is clean. Sparklingly clean. The kind of clean it hasn’t been since we moved in, basically. We bought a deal for a maid service a few months ago on Living Social and saved it for yesterday. It might have to become an annual splurge now. We are actually going to a concert tonight–Liz Phair at the 9:30 Club–which would have been impossible because otherwise I would have been, like, frantically scrubbing the bathtubs or something.
I’m leaving work in half an hour to go home and make two kinds of fudge and mix up some chewy ginger cookies.
It kind of stresses me out, not being stressed. I even heard back from Awesome Agent Jim yesterday. He likes my Thrice revisions! He only has a few very minimal notes for me!
I think there’s a weird, discordant push-pull at this time of year. There’s so much. It’s easy to get caught up in that, to get on the hamster wheel of must-buy, must-do, must-eat. But there’s also the desire to get quiet, to stare at the colored lights and maybe journal or read and just…be. If you’re like me, that second feeling can be a little uncomfortable. Letting go of the "shoulds" and the consumerism and the busy. I think there’s something to it, though. Something in being still and fully present and quietly delighted.
What do you think?
