Not Ready

It's late. Well, technically, it's early. Christmas eve morning, in fact. Everyone is sleeping. I'm soon to follow. But there is so much going on in my head. I'm in disbelief that it is Christmas Eve. I'm a little disapointed actually. I'm not ready.

Physically, I'm ready. We have our tree. I'm done with shopping. We put up our decorations. We mailed out all the cards. We hosted our annual Christmas party. The fourth candle of my advent candle is lit. BUT. BUT. It doesn't feel right. My mind isn't ready. My heart isn't ready. I feel a little bit empty.

It just snuck up on me. I haven't had time to be excited about Christmas. I haven't had time to be anxious in anticipation. I badly wanted to plan a family outing or two this month. But our weekends filled up with chores and to-dos. Ryan's nap battles and Jacob's whinning put a damper on every free day that we had together. It's taken all my energy to do the mandatory stuff that I haven't had time to do much of the fun stuff. And when I actually did the fun stuff, it felt mandatory and chore-like.

I know, I know. Christmas hasn't happened yet. I still have two days left for things to start feeling like Christmas. I'm doing myself a disservice by going INTO the holiday feeling let down. I'm just not very hopeful. It doesn't help that I am feeling especially anti-social. Socialy media has poisoned me this year and made me feel, even though I know it's not true, as if the world is full of fake and self-centered people. I am the first to admit that I am guilty of over-sharing and selfishness on social media. That just makes me feel more disguisted. I have a hard time believing that people will set aside their personal agendas as we gather for the holidays. I need to start practicing my "wow, I really care so much about the thing you are passive agressively bragging/lecturing about," face (re: the insane fitness dieters, the vegetarians, the clean-freaks, the holier-than-thou). Ugh. I'm so negative. Gross.

See? I told you I'm not ready for Christmas. I really need to shake my negativity.

I'm just disappointed that my family-of-four hasn't had much of an opportunity to enjoy each other or create fun holiday memories. It's hard to dive into huge family gatherings and give my attention to extended family when I feel a deficiency within our own family. But, there's no stopping Christmas. It comes whether we are ready or not. If all else fails, I'll just grab my kids and ride the coat tails of their enthusiasm.