MamaLaw #2 – The Holidays should be simple

Isn’t the holiday season supposed to be about Joy, Peace and Happiness? How come as soon as Halloween is over the country loses its mind? Decorations go up, “seasonal items” aisles appear in the grocery, and don’t get me started on the doggone Red Envelope catalogues I receive everyday. Then you start thinking about your holiday plans. Should I invite people over? Should we go to (fill in the blank)’s house? If we go there, will (fill in the blank) be offended? How much is airfare? Do I have to cook? Do we have room for all those people? And the gift thing just puts me over the top. Quick! Make my holiday gift list. Gotta start early this year. Dang! I’m already late. Maybe I’ll shop online. Nope, can’t – the item is on backorder/shipping is a rip-off/the item can’t be delivered until January 17th. Dare I venture into a brick and mortar store??

I was just telling my friend this morning that last year’s Christmas shopping was a nightmare. I got started late and I was 6 months pregnant and determined to purchase the best educational, fun and exciting toys for my then-1-year old. I carefully compiled a list of everything I wanted to get for her and went to……Toys R Us. [I know, all you veteran moms go ahead and laugh - but I didn't know any better!] But alas, here I was, in the middle of, well, BEDLAM. I kid you not. Nothing was on the shelves. They were really and truly bare. Why? Every single item was on the floor. People were wading through toys and screaming at each other, and you could forget about asking a salesperson for help. I heard one salesgirl tell a woman: “Ma’am, you’d better just grab something, buy and wrap it up, ‘cuz ain’t nothin’ left.” I was like, this can’t be for real. So I went to register, begged to skip the line, bought a Kit-Kat and went outside for a mental-health break (I take those fairly often by the way). Once I re-grouped, I went back inside, managed to find a few decent toys (absolutely nothing from my list, mind you) and waited in the mile-long lines to checkout. Oh, did I not mention the mile-long lines? For the life of me, I cannot understand why a store has 10 checkout lanes if they only ever open 3?? I mean, if you’re not going to open all 10 lanes on December 23rd, then WHEN ARE you going to open them?

But this year will be different. For Thanksgiving, I am ordering the meal from La Madeleine. I am looking forward to it. As for Christmas, we have officially decided that we are going to Atlanta to my sister-in-law’s house. That means my first Christmas EVER without my Mommy and my sister (they’re gonna rent a vacation house in Sanibel with some of my other family members so they won’t even miss me) BUT it also means a couple of other things: (1) No tree! I mean, I’ll put up my other decorations for the heck of it, but finding, putting up/taking down, and decorating the tree always takes the most time; (2) Nobody tearing up my house! I love my family. I really do. But having guests means cleaning up your house perpetually, making sure that everyone has what they want to eat and drink; showing people how to work the cable remote; reminding people not to turn on the microwave while the diswasher is running (it’ll trip the circuit); turning off extra lights so that my DH doesn’t have a fit and on and on; (3) No cooking! Sure, I’ll make a dish. Heck, I might even make 2. But I don’t have to worry about the entire meal, grocery shopping, table settings and whatnot; and finally (4) Only a few gifts! We’re doing a family gift exchange so we each picked numbers and are buying gifts for one family instead of 5. And of course I’ll end up getting 3 or 4 gifts for K-dizzle and the same for L-Boogie. Now, I promise, I’m not a Grinch. I LOVE the holidays but lately they have become more stressful than joyful. So, I’m making a change.

This year, my holidays are going to be SIMPLE. Holla if you hear me.