Grinch

Normally I'm a huge fan of Christmas. I love it and get right into the whole thing. I love decorating our house for Christmas and it's a struggle to wait for December. I love helping to plan the menu, and getting together with my family. I adore the day. I love buying presents for people- it's just so much fun! I love so much about Christmas.

But this year, I'm just not feeling it.

I'm trying to. But at the moment I'm not feeling much of anything. I'm in a bit of a funk. I don't think I could pinpoint exactly what's wrong, and if you asked me I couldn't tell you how to fix it. I don't want to change anything. But everything just feels like such an effort at the moment.

I think it's a combination of so many things. The heat, the fact that I feel 18 months pregnant, the fact that Georgie is so full of energy that looking after her feels like the clean up after a tornado. It's also a bit hard with Shane's new job, it's kind of all-consuming for him at the moment. And I get that, I really do, he's stressed and doing the best he can. Plus, it looks like he has to go away for a week for training stuff (although thankfully, not to Canada!). And I think it's all getting a bit much right now. I'm just feeling a bit out of everything, and having a good old pity-party.

So Christmas is just the last thing I want to think about. It doesn't help either that we're trying to be super frugal at the moment, just until we get back on our feet a little after the holiday and job change. I could be awesome at buying Christmas presents if money was no object! But unfortunately it totally is. Normally by this time of the year I would have at least half my Christmas shopping done. This year I have 20 presents to buy (big family) and have only got a couple of little things for Georgie that I bought earlier this year. And honestly I just don't care. It feels too hard.

I'm also so sick of stressing over presents. Most of the time the gift-giving is just really fun, but I find a couple of people on our list particularly hard to shop for, and (of course) they're the people who really do 'judge' the kind of presents they receive. It just feels like a bit much right now, and I don't see any way out of this hole, except for slowly crawling out, one painful step at a time. Or else maybe I can just cancel Christmas? Tell people we're just not doing it this year, that we'll be busy having a baby instead?

I know that's not really an option. I would be so disappointed in myself if  I didn't make the effort. For Georgie, for us, we need to have Christmas. I think I just need to go watch a whole heap of Christmas movies to help get myself into the spirit. Play some Christmas Carols, and maybe look up some Christmas-themes on pinterest.

I'll get there, eventually. I just have to get my grinch out.


*I wrote this post this morning and am since feeling slightly better. I went downtown this morning and managed to find three Christmas presents! Only seventeen left to go.... but at least it's a start. How many presents do you have to buy this year?