have yourself a very little Christmas

This year I haven't been able to get into the holiday spirit. Like, AT ALL. I blame pre-planning. In September, I spied cute wrapping paper that has a photo print of knitted sweaters on it - close up of cable knits and fair isle stitches that is really sweet. I planned this whole "warm and wonderful" holiday theme. I dug out our old lap blankets that ancient grandmas and great aunts had crocheted, to use as tree skirts and couch blankets. I started brushing up on my crochet techniques, thinking that I'd make some granny square ornaments and decorate the tree with yarn. It was going to be cute! I bought matching holiday cards and researched silly knitting puns...

But with all that's been going on in life, none of it happened. At all. Here we are, 4 days before Christmas and I don't have a single stocking hung. I need to buy gifts for a lot of people and I'm still trying to stitch my way through the last of my handmade presents. Heads-up for out of town family and friends: your presents will be ready when I see you and if that's not on Christmas Day, then that means yours isn't ready yet anyway. I apologize for the void in your mailbox.

Sunday I took a break from reality and went to Sea World for the day with Kate to see their holiday decorations and stuff myself with aquatic holiday cheer. That was going to be my Christmas -- my gift to myself, some time having fun. It was a great day, full of sprinkling rain and dolphin shows and it did my heart wonders. When I got home, there was a Christmas tree inside the front door. Ryan decided that my Grinchy little heart needed some evergreen, so he went out - searched high and low - and found the LAST Christmas tree in this zip code. He brought it in, set it up and... it promptly lost every. single. one. of its needles. No exaggeration. The top half is just sticks. The bottom has some needles left, but every time we look at it, it shakes off another pile. It will be completely bald by tomorrow.

But the house at least smells like Christmas. So I pulled out the two little faux mini trees that I had in the garage and put on their tiny ornaments and set them up on the fireplace mantel. At least there's a little Christmas light sparkle happening in here now.

The stockings probably won't make an appearance this year. Turns out that they were barfed on when someone (ahem) was rooting through the boxes in the garage and got matted and icky and can't be saved. There isn't really time to make new ones and I don't have the energy to battle Target shoppers to buy new ones.

So this year, Christmas will be very little in just about every sense. Not a lot of gifts, not a lot of decorations. Just the basics: our cozy little family, spending time with people we love, and drinking hot cocoa until we fall asleep. All-in-all, not a terrible way to spend the holidays.