Christmas Plus and Minus.

I have discovered that the one and only thing that gets me in the Spirit of Christmas is having the presents bought and wrapped. Not ugly decorations. Not lame music. Next year (as with most years) I plan on having Christmas presents purchased early. I think by Halloween would be a good goal this year.

This is how my Christmas went:

Plus: I had ordered some shirts for Huey online and was worried that they may not arrive in time for Christmas. They were some good shirts (one Monty Python, the other Dr. Who) and I was really excited to give him the Monty Python shirt. I had checked my email Sunday morning to find that they were delivered on Saturday. We had not had a package come to our door, so Dewey and I got dressed in our coats and boots (over our jammies) and made the trek to the mailbox. Happily, the package was there and we skipped home to wrap presents. I have found that the boys get really excited with what they are getting for each other and their dad (and probably me). We had a blast wrapping presents together; even though I am extra-specially anal about how packages are wrapped. Dewey and I had a great time acting like little elves running down the block in our jammies and scampering home with our treasures and wrapping them up and putting them under the tree.

Minus: DH was bound and determined to have Christmas morning in the family room this year. It would be a first – we’ve only been in the house six years. I had put up the tree in the front room (lights, minimal decorations, only for Dewey’s sake), and had hoped that DH would take care of the family room while I was running around in Canada. Came home, nothing done. Weekend after week after weekend and nothing. I did what I could to contribute to the cleaning so that decorations could be brought out, but the majority of it was DH’s stuff-that-shall-not-be-touched and he was the one that was making a big deal about having this awesome cozy family room Christmas, so I left it up to him. Saturday night with Huey’s help he cleaned up enough of an area to put the tree up, but left it. He asked me to “fluff” the tree while he was at work on Sunday and when he came home from work for dinner he would put the lights on. I was really tired after taking care of sick Dewey and church and feeding everyone, that I just sat down to close my eyes for a minute. Huey got all kinds of mad at me for not helping things along and took it upon himself to finish the decorating. When DH got home he found Dewey watching TV while Huey was attempting to put the outdoor lights on the tree. DH took over and got the tree lit and the boys decorated the tree Sunday night. There was still the issue of clutter everywhere and no room to open presents. By the time Christmas Eve came around, I had given up and was planning on just having Christmas in the front room, but DH assured me that he would finish taking care of things. I had made the trek to Smith’s in the snow with the rest of Bountiful and back and DH was still lying around. I had a bit of a temper tantrum as I was fed up with his procrastinating and listening to the boys nag me about the lack of presents under the tree. After dinner, he meandered downstairs and got to work. I thought I was going to lose my mind. He was done by 2 am Christmas morning.

Plus: When I went to Smith’s at noon, there was major traffic. There was a huge line just to get into the driveway. Genius that I am, I forgot that they are doing construction on one of the driveways, so I had to turn left into the other driveway. I waited an eternity for my turn to have someone coming the opposite direction stop and block traffic so that I could turn in. That really put some spring in my step. I got everything that I needed for my Christmas dinner and Christmas baking with a smile on my face. I was in such a good mood that I almost did a victory dance in the middle of the canned vegetable aisle.

Minus: DH stores all the purchased gifts in two of the safes, so I was unable to get to them in order to have the boys wrap their presents to each other and to their dad. With our schedules being what they are, I never had a chance to have the safes opened early enough for there to be lots of presents under the tree and for my peace of mind. I don’t know the combinations, nor do I want to. I started on Friday asking him to open the safes for me so that I could pull out the presents the boys were going to give each other and some of the presents DH bought for himself that the boys were going to give to him. Huey and Dewey kept nagging me because they wanted to wrap presents, and I had to keep putting them off because DH kept putting me off. I had to have a tantrum to get DH to open up the bloody safes. I really did not want to do any yelling at Christmas, but I only lasted until Christmas Eve.

Plus: I have new hair and I really, REALLY, really love it.

Minus: The boys think I look like Draco Malfoy, and DH thinks it looks “not natural” so none of the boys like it.

Plus: The snow that started while I was at Smith’s on Christmas Eve continued to fall all day, so we had a White Christmas.

Minus: I told DH that I didn’t need any presents because I got to go to Vancouver. I had sent him a couple of wish lists in November; all he had to do was click on the thing and purchase it. He’s home during the day and would be there when the packages were delivered so I would be none the wiser. I’m not sure I could have made it any easier. A) I told him I didn’t need or want anything, but if he wanted to get me anything, he could get me something from here. B) I told him I didn’t need or want anything. C) I made it as easy as possible for him to get me something. D) I really hate shopping for myself, so it would have been really nice for him to just bloody well get me something from the lists. E) I’m really picky. He kept telling me on Christmas Eve that he felt bad that he didn’t have very many presents for me. I kept telling him that I didn’t want anything while reminding him that I had sent him lists with links over a month ago and he had no excuse for not having “much” for me and if he had really wanted to get me some nice presents then he had plenty of time and opportunity. We went through the same thing last year – I told him not to get me anything because we had spent so much money on our (my) trip to Kauai; to just focus on presents for the boys. He ended up feeling guilty because I didn’t have much to unwrap, so he bought me a $200.00 guitar. A guitar that I don’t know how to play, don’t have time to play let alone take lessons to learn how to play, and have only touched three times since I got it. It’s beautiful and I love it, but all it does is collect dust, torture me with the reminder that I don’t have the time to learn how to play it, and haunt me because it was such a waste of money. I was so worried that he was going to do that this year, so I kept reassuring him that I didn’t need any money spent on me. I ended up receiving an ugly pair of slippers and an even uglier candle warmer thing. I already have two candle warmer things that I rarely use that are NOT ugly. Not wanting to ruin Christmas or make a big deal out of it, I said nothing and kept it to myself. I was wishing that if he was going to get me ugly crap for Christmas that he would just not buy me anything at all. I was also musing about how we’ve been together for sixteen Christmases and we still can’t buy gifts for each other; me because he can’t be patient and buys things for himself whenever he wants them, and him because he’s stupid. Being that DH loves to poke bears with sticks, he confronted me about it after all the presents were opened and the boys were off building their Lego sets. I was still trying to get over myself and move on, but still pretty upset because he hadn’t taken anything that I had said to him to heart, and disappointed that we suck at buying presents for each other. (he got a shirt, cologne, Lawrence of Arabia box set on blu-ray, and a Blu-ray player – the Blu-ray player and Blu-ray box set he had bought for himself). He kept poking and prodding me and trying to get me to fight with him, and I kept trying to end the conversation so that I could move on and not be a sad cat, but he kept poking and poking until I said some not-nice things and told him I wanted him to return the gifts and to just drop it.

Plus: I ended up getting over myself rather quickly.

Plus: He told me to go buy some things for myself and I am SO going to take him up on that.

Plus: The boys loved all their presents and they made out like bandits.

Plus: I made a delicious Christmas dinner. So much so that the two hours I spent on my feet cooking was totally worth it.

Minus: The boys complained about dinner. I made ham and vegetables and didn’t even make them eat any of the weird vegetables (like Brussels sprouts, turnips, and sweet potatoes) that I made just for me.

Plus: When I told Dewey, who was the loudest complainer, how long I had been cooking and how hard I had worked on this dinner and how much it hurt my feelings that he was complaining about dinner, he apologized and stopped complaining which inspired Huey to stop complaining too. Later that night when we were finishing The Prisoner of Azkaban he gave me a big hug and told me again how sorry he was for complaining about dinner.

Plus: Other than the fight that DH picked with me, there was no fighting and peace for the whole day.

Plus: I was able to take the time for a full body facial/hair removal session/manicure and try out a bunch of products I had received from Sephora but hadn’t had the time to sample yet. This was very relaxing and made me super happy.

Minus: I wanted to spend some time writing, but I didn’t have time because I was cooking.

Plus: Nanaimo Bars

Overall, I am putting this Christmas in the Win column.