kattitudes

Even with Thanksgiving happening in two days, we are thinking Christmas still. I talked a lot about Christmas organization, even going so far as to post a big list suggesting easy (well, maybe) ways to prepare yourself for the Christmas holiday season. Where are you on it?

If you have down time (I will pause for a moment to give you time to laugh yourself silly), take a minute to read over the list and take mental inventory. If nothing else, running a list in your head will often help calm the chatter. Hey, I am list maker from way back. If I can make a list, the panic goes away. Now, whether I do anything about the list is a different matter - but by golly, that list gets made and the panic recedes.

So if you are reaching Mach 9 on the panic stage about everything you have to do, stop. Have a rest. Make a list. Give yourself five minutes of intentional downtime. Gather your thoughts. Then pick it up and go again. It will help. I promise.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset grow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Dec 8, 1915 John McCrae

My parents have a hierarchical rank in their children.

There is the Holy Son. He of the two years older than me, that will literally no longer acknowledge my existence because we disagree on basic human tenants. I believe that all people have value and he believes that no one person will ever be as important as he.

Then there is the prodigal baby (my little sister) who is well aware of her on- again- off- again- favored status, and the understanding that her ranking in the acceptable file of my parents’ affection hinges on vital matters, such as whether or not the garbage men remembered to pick up the garbage that week or not. (Because things like that matter to our parents and really throw off the chi of the favored children ranking.)

Then there is me. On the parental popularity scale, I fall somewhere between a process server and a rock.

However, it does give my sister and I a lot to giggle about (the status and relative ranking of her on- again- off- again- status and where she falls vis a vie the garbage men). And once we get started, sometimes the giggling is hard to control.

What happens is that occasionally, I call my poor sister, full combustion giggling already underway, trying desperately to communicate. But while she can see on the caller ID that it is indeed her older sister calling, what she hears on her mobile is “hee hee hee HA HA he hee see? HA HA you? HA hee he hee hee you? HA he he hee he he CLICK”

This is usually repeated twice. Sometimes three times.

I try so hard, but I get the freaking giggles so hard that it just is impossible. And every time it gets worse, because after the first utterly failed phone call, she (of course) has already begun to get the giggles. So by the second phone call, she answers laughing. And it is straight down hill (via the hell in a handbasket express obviously) from there.

I cannot tell you how many times this exact scenario has repeatedly played itself out in our lives.

As a result, since I can no longer communicate with my poor baby sister - I am posting the picture and texting her to check my blog. She’ll know what to do now.

Little One: this is what I was trying to ask if you had seen.

I just saw my first Hallmark television commercial.

There was snow, a fire in a fireplace, a snowman and all the requisite red and white ornamentation and suddenly presto, it happened.

I got smacked head on with the Spirit of Christmas.

I am truly amazed.

Now you have to understand. I am a freak for Christmas. My husband, I think, sometimes feels he is contractually obligated to at least represent the opposite end of the spectrum and pretend to stand up for the Scrooges in the world (but it is half-hearted at best). I can say that if there was a vaccine for Christmas, I am fairly certain he would ask me to be first in line. I would be perfectly happy to keep the house decorated year round.

Main point of the story. I just saw my first real Christmas commercial and I felt that thrill that I get - but usually a lot closer to December. That Christmas is coming thrill.

And I actually felt it. Christmas is coming. Oh my god I am so excited! Christmas is coming! Time to get it on!

Ever since seeing this in a design competition (I think it was in London), I have been obsessed with the idea of making it myself. For some reason, I adore this. Weird. Just flat out weird.

I have this freakish obsession with house decorations that resemble weird things. Thank goodness my Mister has the good sense that God gave a gnat to line item veto oddities.

But I’m still trying to figure out how to work this into the scheme of things. Shh, don’t tell him. Oh damn! He reads this blog. Honey, forget I said that part.

There is a lot to do for Christmas and it always seems like not enough time to do it. We are taking on too much and stretching ourselves too thin.The name of the game here is preparation. Plan ahead. Take steps to make life easier on yourself and you will find that the holiday stress reduces and you find more joy throughout the season.The end goal here is to find the time to sit down calmly, Christmas carols on in the background, fire if it’s cold enough (and you have a fireplace), and enjoy the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree in your relatively clean home. I didn’t say organized or perfect or spotless or quiet. I said relatively and calmly. Big difference in all those words. We all want calm and we need to appreciate that what works in your house might not work in my house and that is A-OK.

This is the season of peace for mankind and by golly, it is also the season of peace for you. Make peace with your home and what you have done. Make peace with the fact that this might just not be the year that you Martha Stewart your house. So be it.

Hell, I push and pimp and two-bit dealer market making your own gifts all year long, but you know what? If it doesn’t happen, who the hell cares? This is all about peace here ladies (and gentlemen). If you weren’t able to make every single stinking last present this year, meh. The world still spins. Want to hear a confession? More than one year goes by that I purchase all my gifts. It happens.

So enough with the game day pep talk. On with the organization.

Here are some basic things to do now to get ready for the holidays. Seriously, take some time over the next few nights (now, while we are winding down from Halloween and time is still loose) and put this all together. You will thank yourself repeatedly through December for doing this.

1. Organize your gift wrap accessories: find a carryall type bag or bin (something with straps) and put everything you need but the wrap itself (too unwieldy) in there. I am talking scissors, tape, tags, bows, frills, tiny ornaments, fripperies, absolutely everything you need to wrap a present, with the exception of the big rolls of wrap themselves. That way when it is time to wrap, you can just grab that bag and run. I keep my stuff in a huge totebag with a zipper (bows included). When I am ready, I just pick out the roll of wrapping paper I want, sit myself down in front of the tv with the presents I’m going to work on, pop in a movie and do my thing.
   1. As part of that gift wrapping preparation, when you are sitting in front of the television, start making those cutesy little gift tag embellishments right now. We have all the little things we need. The tiny decorations somewhere. The stickers, the markers, the big tags. If you are going to make your own labels, start making them now so you aren’t in a panic later. You don’t have to fill in the TO: part yet, but you can make the cutesy gift tag embellishments while you are watching tv.
   2. Yes, long before the holidays hit, I will put up posts on how to make bows with blow by blow (oh did I want to make word puns there) illustrations. There are links all over the net and I have found some particularly fantastic ones, so I will include those too. If you aren’t up for that, I also have a mega huge list of ways to decorate packages without all the purchased doodads. I’ve talked before about the ongoing joke around the house with regards to the Mountain of Greed that gets left behind on Christmas morning. The huge pile of wrappings and bows and ribbons and such. It’s such a waste and the older I get, the more it bothers me. So this year, I’m going to start adding alternatives to wrapping so as to reduce the Mountain of Greed.
2. Get out all your decorations and put them all in one place as soon as you feel ready. You don’t have to put them up, but get them out and together. I put mine in the garage. We don’t use the whole garage, so it allows me to have a staging area. I get them out so I can go over what I have and what I feel like I need. That way I am ready to decorate. I can do this because I have decluttered to the point where I don’t have eleventy hundred boxes anymore. Just eleventy dozen. I also do this so that I can start accessing the boxes for the little pieces I need to make the handmade stuff. I don’t keep the little bits and bobs out all year long - I store it in with Christmas so I know where it is. So getting out the Christmas decorations right after Halloween means time to buckle down and get stuff made.
3. Now. Get your card list done now. I know. It’s one of those annoying things that is a pain sometimes because it means you have to go digging for addresses and such, but if you do it now, you don’t have to spend the beginning of December panicking that you don’t have an address. So just do it, ok? This step literally takes the longest time for me. Every year I make this list and put it away carefully so next year I won’t have to go through the crisis again. Every. Freaking. Year. I. Go. Through. The. Crisis. Again.
   1. Part of getting your cards done now is deciding if you are going to make them (I love this option for the creative side) or have them made (I love this option because it is less stress on me) or if you are going to buy them (I love this option because it is no fuss no muss and frankly the option I usually use because I have a stockpile of eleventy billion cards I have been trying to work through each year and I think I’m almost done finally).
   2. If you are going to use a photo in your cards, time to find one. This always takes time, so hurry.
   3. Figure out if you are going to write that Christmas newsletter. I always do a little movie, so it’s time for me to start gathering my photos and music and begin the process.
   4. If you have a mailing list and envelopes, start addressing those cards. Me, I broke etiquette long ago. I use address labels. I just do. May Emily Post come to my house and strike me down. It takes me five minutes to run my computer program and print out a gorgeous label set with clip art and print them out and five hundred hours to hand address each card. Guess which I do. And no one has fainted dead away from the Christmas card faux pas yet.
4. And on that note, make your gift list now. Right freaking now. You should know exactly who you need to be giving a gift to and have an idea of how much you want to spend on each person. It’s the beginning of November which means that if you don’t have a basic idea of how much you can spend at Christmas, you only have two months to work that out. We do not want to end Christmas with massive bills. Oh, no we do not.
   1. when you purchase and/or make your gifts, put them all in the same place. Oh trust me on this one. You do not want to lose them in your house, then spend Christmas Eve trying to figure out where you put them. Or Christmas morning. After presents have been opened. And there you are, wandering around, opening drawers and handing your sister one more present. And then finding just one more and handing that one to her. I’m just saying.
   2. Oh, and when you wrap ahead of time, for goodness sake, put a gift tag on the danged present. To be a smartass, one year I didn’t label wrapped presents to keep curious eyes from figuring out what present might be what. All that happened was that I forgot what present was what and I had to unwrap them all, identify them, then rewrap the damned things. Not one of my more brilliant Christmas maneuvers. Sheesh.
5. If you are making kitchen gifts, now now now. This is one area that you can get almost everything done this month!
   1. Preserves can be made now and put up in the cupboard to wait.
   2. All those amazing mix in a jars? Lasts easily through until December 25th. And if you purchase your supplies now, you don’t have to deal with the crisis grocery shopping (and pricing) near Christmas.
   3. And I know it sounds a little eeww, but it is true; cookie dough lasts up to three months in the freezer (and we are looking way under that at best). Ask Martha. So it is perfectly safe for you to make your Christmas cookie dough now, freeze it, then thaw it closer to the holidays and prep your gift baskets. Talk about a time saver. This has saved my anxious little tush on more than one occasion!
6. If you are planning parties, set your dates now. My Mister comes from a broken home and trying to balance all the families and their families and those families families? Oi. This is why we have our annual Bash on Boxing Day. The time crunch is over and besides, I like the alliteration. The sooner you can let friends know about potential parties, the easier it is on their schedules, and trust me, they do appreciate it. Sure, you always have that one person that has to say the obligatory “Oh, I can’t even think that far in advance of the holidays”, but you do not have to be that person. You can be the organized one.

I have a lot of websites that I want to share over the next few days. They are all craft type websites, but geared towards helping you with particular skills. Mostly needlework type as those need a little bit of explanation. I’ve searched around and found some real corkers. So if you are wanting some help getting some of the gifts done, these should really top off the need.

I’ve also found so many free patterns for gifts that you can make, it’s just not funny. Some I can post (well, I’m going to post anyway) but I’ll also include a link back so you can go to the source.

And in all the time that I cruise around, I have found some utterly fabulous supply shops, so I’m going to add a page listing where I find a heck of a lot of the stuff I buy (and it’s not just eBay). So if you are looking for a particular item (particularly for kitchen stuff - that can be a challenge sometimes for the mix in a jars bit) I found some great places that will ship you massive bulk.

So no worries. Lots of handmade gifts will be starting back up, but before then, I have huge amounts of links I want to share so that you can get your crafty on.

And people, don’t be afraid to talk to me. If you are looking for something, let me know. I’d love to chat about what you are doing and what you can and can’t find. I’m still rumbling around in my mind trying to figure out what to make for everyone this year, so I think I need to start talking about that in a few posts to try to get some ideas too.

Last night was a roaring success. Everyone should have a Halloween crazy dinner.

On to the matter of no costume, no candy.

I swear by all that is holy, the universe heard my frustration. No lie, we had three groups of kids last night.

One hoard first. Every single one in costume. Even the old ones.

The next, older-ish, but both in costume, and accompanied by parent.

And the last, quite young, but in costume, and accompanied by parent.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I swear, every time I put my foot down and make an awful proclamation that I am not going to take it anymore, the universe hears, acknowledges, and rearranges things so that I am left either thinking that I am crazy, made things up, or was imagining things.

So I thank each and every single one of you blessed angels that commented and particularly the shy ones that emailed me to tell me about all the manner-challenged terrorists that came pounding on your doors each Halloween to demand their free candy. It let me know I wasn’t imagining this, and that I certainly wasn’t alone.

Could it be that ranting about it somehow broke the curse? Oh hush. I’m southern. Talking about breaking a curse simply means that you jinx it. Hush hush.

And I am laughing my not petite little tush off at my husband. I have said before I’m off chocolate here (migraine sufferer). No chocolate in the world is worth the headache pain anymore, so I just won’t eat it.

Apparently, he was expecting an incoming Mongolian army, so purchased Halloween candy according. We now have enough chocolate stocked up in this house to last through Y3K.

It appears, for budgeting sake, I’ll be baking with chocolate a lot this Christmas season.

You know, I can talk a good talk, but I am sooo Jane Normal. Get up, sometimes walk around in my pajamas all day like everyone else. Look around, house is a disaster area. Just. Like. Normal. People.

Having a dinner party tomorrow. Excited? Yes. House ready?

Excuse me. I had to take a moment to recover from the peals of laughter. They crawled out from behind the boxes still hidden in the closet from when we moved into the house (THREE YEARS AGO) and tried to chew off my face. I had to fend them off with my half eaten breakfast I’m still carrying around at 4:22 pm.

Yeah. So see? We aren’t all Suzy Perfect Homemaker.

I have been getting these fabulous emails from the funniest people lately asking me how in the freaking hell do I do all this … stuff.

Um, hello. Dinner party tomorrow. Carrying breakfast around with me. 4:22. pm. That means in the afternoon which technically is well past the time for the breaking of the fast.

Now I will do the insufferable Southern Belle thang and gloat proudly that once again I am in possession of a kitchen floor that could be dined upon. However, I will balance it with a strong consideration that if I don’t get a move on, the guests might very well be eating said kitchen floor as the menu itself, which would not be such a proud accomplishment in the end.

Now see, this is something I want to deal with as we get into Christmas a little more. The deadly twins. Perfection and Procrastination.

I want things to be perfect. Oh lordy do I want things perfect. I have a perfect little image in my mind. I want my gifts perfect, my house perfect, my cookies perfect, my cakes perfect, my jewelry perfect, my webpage perfect, my relationships perfect, my everything perfect, my life perfect.

And then life happens. Because, you know, it’s life.

And it happens.

And so I procrastinate. Because, after all, as a Southern Belle, I keep thinking that if I just give it that extra little effort, maybe - just maybe - I can actually make it perfect. You know. The gifts. The cakes, the cookies, the meals, the parties, the webpage, the earth, the relationships, the life, the world, the everything (not taking much upon myself, am I?).

And then life happens again.

And someday I’m going to remember first before I procrastinate that life happens. Whether my stuff gets done or not.

I have to say that I’ve finally gotten old enough that I finally gave up - no. Strike that. Let’s be honest.

I’m in the process of giving up avoiding the procrastination part forever anymore. I still fall into the perfection trap, and sometimes I fall into that for a long time, which really sucks.

But I’m really working on the procrastination thing. I find that I passed a magic age that I figured out that it doesn’t matter if I procrastinate or not, I’m still going to die anyway. So either do it or not do it, because done or not, I’m still outta here.

What’s this have to do with crafts?

Do it or not, you are still outta here. I get emails that tell me that you can’t do it.

OK.

And when I get those, I think of that asinine self-help statement (and I hate self-help mantras, so you know this is killing me) that says “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right”.

Lord, I hate that.

And who ever said that is right. If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you can’t. It really is that simple.

I really try to keep the complexity of what I show around here down. I don’t go high hog because I want it to be something that people who have some basic crafting skills can look at and say “oh my gosh, you know, I bet I can do that”.

Why is that so important to me?

I remember being a little girl, bitching to my mom. Good golly, my mom and I got along like oil and water. We still do. But I’ll give her this, Mom can craft like I do. Give her a minute to look something over and she can figure out how to do something lickity-split.

She would go into these sewing fugue states where we had to hush up and leave her alone and she would sew for 24 hours a day for two or three days straight and emerge with new outfits for everyone.

What stunk so completely and utterly about this was that her sewing room was my bedroom. I would sit up at 2 in the morning and complain “Mom, I have school tomorrow. Can’t you stop now? I want to turn out the light.” Good grief, I was ten years old. She would tell me, “Hush up and go to sleep. Put the blanket over your head”.

Oil and Water, people.

Granted, I got some bee-yoo-ti-ful clothes out of it, but who can appreciate that as an exhausted ten year old?

All I could do was complain about how much cheaper it would be to go find the damned clothes on sale.

Mom told me something I didn’t understand then, but I do now.

When you spend all day cleaning and cooking, everything gets destroyed the minute you do it. You clean something, someone comes through and messes it up again. You cook a meal, someone comes through and eats it and messes up the dishes and all you have is another mess to clean. There is never anything left over for you to sit and admire. There is never anything for you to enjoy or for anyone to appreciate the hard work you put into it. And when you make something, you have something tangible to show for all the hard work you do.

I was ten. I was tired. I was Water and I couldn’t stand my Oil.

Now, I’m a Big Girl. We’re still Oil and Water, but it stuck with me. And it stuck with me long enough to resonate and resonate until it made sense.

It made more sense after I got married and cleaned up messes and made meals and cleaned more messes and realized that I had nothing tangible to show for all the hard work I did.

But man, could I craft. Oh lordy, I could make stuff like nobody’s business. You show me something and I could whip that puppy out (or at least a close proximation) well enough to do Martha herself proud. It might not win awards, but by golly, it got the job done.

And then I got thrifty. (Or cheap, take your pick. Either works for me.) I would go into the stores and see these adorable crafty items and pick them up and think “oh my self. Why Self, I just loves me some of this thing. Self, why don’t you think about taking this home?” And then I would look at the price tag and I. would. get. offended.

I know it’s the Southern Belle part of me talking, but dang it people. Some of the prices being charged out there are just downright offensive. And that just ticks me right off. I don’t give a good god damn if I can afford it, I should not have to afford it. Not when I can walk my pissy self home, dig in my waaaay too extensive stockpile of pretty pretty craft supplies and pull out enough close matches to make something that will fill that little hole that was created when I saw the pretty pretty creation in the first place.

Plus I had the satisfaction of looking and saying, “I did that” every. time. I. looked. at. it.

Every time.

That is some powerful mojo, people.

I gotta tell you. It doesn’t matter if the bills are late, the dishes are not washed, everyone at work is fussing and the family is fighting. When you look at something you made, sitting there pretty and finished and fine, there is that little glow around your heart and you think in your head, “hey, I did that”.

It’s good mojo.

And that’s why I push making all this stuff so hard.

My house isn’t clean yet, I’m having a dinner party in less than 24 hours,my menu is half done, I’ll be baking half the night to make sure I’m done tonight rather than tomorrow and what is bothering me?

I’m bothered that I didn’t take the time to post some gift suggestions today.

It’s the perfection bug, people. One of the twins I’m trying to shake.

And why didn’t I take the time to post gift suggestions today?

Because I didn’t have the time to write up perfect little descriptions because I procrastinated on getting it all done yesterday. The other twin.

So, over the next few months (oh, who am I fooling. It’s going to be longer than that) you’re going to be reading about the twins. Perfection and Procrastination. And you’re going to be reading about the twins in terms of how they work with making our gifts for others and using our time.

I know I’m not the only one out here living with the twins; Perfection and Procrastination. If I’m the only one that is going to say it out loud, I will take one for the team without a problem.

We’ll chat about UFOs. If you make things, you know what they are. UFO = unfinished objects that we started but never got around to finishing. They are sitting around, abandoned for one reason or another (most of them very very good reasons too).

We’ll chat about why I keep saying that your gift is in the making. Because it is. When you make something for a person, something magical happens. You think about that dear person with every stitch, every teaspoon, every single bead you put together. And the love you have for that person shines through the finished product.

Anyway, the twins just attacked again. I was happily blathering along and got sidetracked. So rather than finishing my thought, I’m just going to finish this post off.

I’m off to finish the house, bake the cakes and print the menus. I have pumpkins to put out and for once, my costume is actually finished before Halloween. Good grief. That is a record. Honest to goodness record.

Tomorrow there will be a few ideas, no worries. But then, come Thursday, we are talking Christmas. Lots on my plate this year, so I have to beat back the twins and the only way to do that is focus a lot early on.

I really really want to relax in December. The only way to do that is to spend a lot of busy time in November.

Hope you are ready for it.

November 1 is the start of NaNoWriMo.

November is also the month of American Thanksgiving, which has always been a favorite of mine, not just because it’s Thanksgiving, but because my little sister demands that I reproduce exactly all my amazing grandmother’s recipes, and stands watch over me to make sure that I do just so.

And November is also the month before December, where we feel like we still have plenty of time to spare and time to play around with the making all our presents for all the extended friends and family for which we had grand plans.

As I committed to previously, this is the first year I am trying to win NaNoWriMo (winning simply involving finishing). However, that is going to mean some advanced planning on my part. That also translates to multiple benefits for my dear constant readers.

Since I have made the choice to juggle my own multiple balls in the air, I’m going to have to organize a lot more clearly than I have before. Gifts that can be made in advance need to be. Lists that can be done before hand need to be. Cleaning that can be done must be. And baking and the like that can be done before hand must be.

Which means that if you follow along, there is a darned good chance that you can get a heck of a lot done long before Christmas hits.

There are a lot of my fellow NaNo participants out there reading along now, including a contingent of NaNo virgins. We are going to do fine. This is a lark. If we make it, lovely. If we don’t, lovely too. No pressure. This is for fun, people.

Kattitudes will be fast and frantic through November. I’ll be looking for lots of conversations all throughout. Balancing novel writing and crafting will be fascinating. I’m rather interested to see how I do it myself.