Welcome to Hell month.

I mean Merry Christmas.

Remember Christ in Christmas. Not Happy Holidays. Sigh.

I am sitting here sipping my Peppermint Mocha and wondering if I can just go ahead and skip right into 2020 blowing a horn and wearing a top hat.

Christmas always seems like rush hour to me. Have you ever just sat in traffic looking at red break lights and watching for the merging (no blinker, no warning)? Miles of red lights and miles to go. Everyone just hoping the idiot in front of them just finds the gas pedal and takes their foot off the brake (Come on! Move! Idiot!).

Okay so everyone finally merges and gets in their lane and then it’s a race. A race to find the best gift. Better than last year’s gift.  It’s exhausting and the next thing you know, you have missed your exit and have to go miles out of your way to get back.

That’s how Christmas feels to me. One big line of brake lights followed by endless merging.

However, I do like to play music when I am stuck in the Christmas jam. I tend to play a couple of Christmas albums every year. As soon as December 1st comes around, I start playing Sammy Kershaw Christmas Time’s a Comin’ and I move onto George Strait. Finally,  I tie it up with a bow with Harry Connick jr.

I am not completely heartless.

I just feel the weight of people pleasing closing in on me at this time of the year. I am hands down the worst gift giver. Just tell me exactly what you want because the overwhelming panic I get trying to find the perfect gift leaves me paralyzed. So you end up with nothing. My daughter caught onto this game at a very early age. Santa was her ticket in. She learned to make her list and check it twice.

When she was very little she would become very fixed on one gift. She very rarely varied once she decided. Like the year she wanted a Furbie.

She gets very specific with her gifts, and now she sends them to her dad and I in a note document on her phone.  How times have changed! She adds and deletes to it. It automatically upgrades on our ends. Simple.

She may not always clean her room, but her ability to get us her list is always on point.

Christmas is always hard for me because she goes to see her dad. Every Christmas. It’s our deal. It doesn’t make me sad like it did the first year. The first year of tough. Mentally exhausting and I made it through. We made it through.  Now she looks forward to the flights because she goes by herself and sleeps the whole way, and complains her flight attendant that is making sure she gets from Gate A to Gate B doesn’t stop for coffee. So we move Christmas around to fit us. To be honest, we move it around to fit my shopping schedule.

So I get it when people are alone on this holiday. I also understand the love to be around everyone and do all the things. It’s important to make my own traditions around this year. I tend to be a bit more introverted and I tend to sit more quietly in my space, and sometimes that’s not what is needed or what I need.

I still like to drive around and look at everyone’s decorations.

When she was five years old we drove around with our hot cocoa through the neighborhood in Willow Glen because they do an amazing job of getting in the spirit. The giant sleigh and reindeer were always a hit. However not as big as hit as me swearing and saying the guy in front of me was driving like “a D-bag.” A little voice in the back seat asking me what that meant wasn’t my finest Merry Moment.

Now I watch all the Christmas movies (Die Hard, Christmas Vacation, Christmas Story, Charlie Brown and the Grinch) and I also love all the Hallmark Movies. Because what is better than to realize this season comes at us fast every year and we don’t always handle it in the very best way we could.

I know I need to do a self check when I start to feel anxious and ask myself what can make this better. It usually means to slow down and not hit add to cart. I would like to say I send out cards but that’s not who I am. I do text loved ones Merry Christmas(because my phone isn’t used for talking to live people) and I do like to sit quietly in the moment because my brain needs extra time before the rush of festivities.

The days are long but the time is short. For now I will ask for tea and make us sit through yet another Netflix Christmas Love story.

I love a happy ending. Don’t you?