I already need a nap...

All right.  So I really did my best this week to keep things on a lower level.  I even did a bunch of stuff in November so that this first week of December would be No Big Deal.

To summarize, back in November, I made a bunch of earrings and a couple of necklaces for my daughter to put in her little Advent calendar.  The drawers are so tiny that not much stuff fits, so I'm limited on what I can put in there.  She got her ears pierced over the summer and has possibly said something once or twice (or 700 times) that she would love some "hanging earrings."  Hint taken, m'dear:)

I like to make jewelry and used to do it all the time (pre-baby, of course).  I subscribed to some jewelry-making kits recently to help restart my creative juices.  In general, the kits haven't been my style, but I find that just the act of making things helps me get in the right mental space to be more creative.  And now I have someone to give all the things I make that I don't want to wear to:)

I also did a quick photo shoot with Gemma back in November, so I got a great picture to use for the Christmas card.  I promptly got to photo uploaded to Shutterfly, entered all the addresses for my recipients, and ordered the cards with envelopes that already have return addresses and recipient addresses printed on them.  I even have the cards in my possession at this very moment.  Check that off the list.  (Although I still need to write my Christmas letter - but that is on the schedule for next weekend, so no worries, everything is fine.)

I even - gasp! - put up Christmas decorations BEFORE Thanksgiving!!!!  I have never done that before.  It was liberating.  (Although I did miss my Thanksgiving decorations a little.  But sacrifices have to be made!)

The credenza in our living room.  The little house is Gemma's Advent Calendar.

A little shelf in our family room.

Then I continued my super motivation and got a list of gift ideas for Gemma to the relatives and ordered most of her presents.  I gave my husband a list of ideas for me and forced him to give me a list too.  Check, check, and check.  And I got the corner where the tree would go cleaned up.  And by cleaned up, I mean I dusted the shelves, purged some crap we don't need anymore, scrubbed the floor, and even hung curtains that I'd been meaning to hang for about seven years.  (They were somehow 4 inches too short, but whatever, it's fine.  I'll just glue some kind of border on the bottom and it'll be fine.  Because the important thing is that the curtains are hung, not that they are perfect.  But I'm totally going to fix them...like next year or the year after - ha, ha!)

I mean, with all that productivity, what more could there be to do???  December is going to be a walk in the park, I though.  ha, ha, ha, ha...

December 1st is the day designated for the purchase of a Christmas tree.  I can't remember exactly when I made that unbreakable rule, but I think it was probably Gemma's second Christmas.  For her first Christmas, I think we ended up traveling that month and maybe still had an artificial tree.  But I chose December 1st because I can't imagine that we could keep a tree alive for more than one month (and even that is pushing it most years - our tree usually looks like it has been dead for a year by the time it goes out for composting).  I also used to be firmly of the mindset that no Christmas decorating could be done prior to Thanksgiving.  (As you can see, I am evolving, slowly.  But progress sometimes comes one step at a time.)

We used to go to a cut-your-own-Christmas-tree place as part of my fervent efforts to support local businesses and ones that preserve green space.  But after a couple of years of my husband complaining about all the time I spent wandering around looking for a tree and then him having to kneel down in mud to cut it and then carry it 100 miles to the car while still paying the same price as for a tree that was already cut and looked nicer plus Gemma being too little to appreciate what was going on and therefore being fussy and non-participative, I gave it up.  Now, we go to a beautiful local garden center that has gorgeous (but expensive) pre-cut trees.  My husband still grumps a bit about the time and money involved, so then I remind him about the old way and point out that he loves the movie Christmas Vacation and he should be channeling his inner Clark Griswold.  (It doesn't seem to help, but I do it anyway...)

We go to get the tree on December 1 rain or shine.  Wind or no wind.  Light or dark.  This year, it was dark when we went because we had to go after Gemma was done with rock climbing practice.  I suggested we skip the rock climbing practice because Christmas traditions should trump something Gemma does several times a week all year long, but I was overruled.  So at about 8 pm, we were the lone searchers for the perfect tree.  Which was fine.  

I did find the perfect tree fairly quickly, only to discover that two of its branches had been broken on one side.  My husband suggested that those branches could go in the back, but I just couldn't see it.  So we found our second choice, and Gemma and I celebrated while my husband took care of the details.  We got it loaded into the truck and made our way home for what was going to be a series of late nights.

My daughter went through a period of being a bit irritated by all my picture-taking.  But she embraces it now and happily poses for me:)

The Tree.  Gemma is making a heart sign with her hands to indicate that it is her favorite.

So the thing that I didn't think about when I came up with my take-it-easy-during-December plan is that Gemma loves Christmas and wants to do all the things all the time.  My week was full of her asking if we could do x or y or z.  And just fielding the questions consumed what seemed like hours every day.  And there was no leaving the tree to be decorated until the weekend for that child.  Oh no.  So I came up with the strategy that we would do a little each day.  Lights went up the second day.  The ribbon garland the next day.  But after two late nights of dealing with it because I could never seem to fit it in until the very last thing of the day (or rather night), I finally had to stop.  Friday was a no Christmas decorating day.  Then we finished up with the tree this morning.

This is literally the only clean spot in my whole house.  The rest of it is a complete disaster, and I have no idea how I'm going to get it clean.

And in case you are thinking, well, Gail, that doesn't seem so bad.  You got the tree and got it decorated.  That's a nice, slow pace.  You would be right if that is all we did.  Let me share what else we accomplished this week, in addition to my regular work schedule, Gemma's regular riding schedule, and all the other regular life stuff like laundry and eating and sleeping.

December 2nd was a big day.  We started out with Gemma writing her letter to Santa.  Normally she goes to see him, but I figured with COVID, that may not be the best idea, so I asked if she would do a letter instead.  She thought that was a great idea, and worked very hard on creating quite a bit of art for the card she choose to use.  She gave me a heart attack, though, when she decided to ask Santa for a rainbow bridle.  I mean, how the heck is Santa supposed to get a rainbow bridle this close to Christmas?  I knew where I would normally go for such a thing (Taylored Tack), but there would not be enough time because the bridle would be made to order.  Thankfully, Gemma decided Santa could get her any tack or brushes (yes, for the horse she does not yet have, but she expects to get soon...)  So that relieved the pressure on me.  But I decided to do some checking for a rainbow bridle anyway.  I found a friend that had a spare pair of brand new rainbow reins (which was great because everywhere I checked was sold out - I mean, are you kidding me?)  And I tracked down a lady who sells the beta biothane bridles on Etsy and ordered one in a whole bunch of colors (cross fingers it will come in time!).

Gemma put a lot of work into her letter!

Later in the day, we went back to the same garden Center where we got the tree.  Gemma and I love to wander around and enjoy all the indoor displays.  Because this store goes all out for Christmas and puts together probably 20 or so different Christmas tree displays.  And everything in the display is for sale.  Here are some pictures of maybe half of the displays they had.

It is our annual tradition to go to the store and look at all the gorgeousness.  Plus, Gemma gets to choose one ornament for herself, and I usually get one or two for our big tree.  I love bird ornaments and started a collection of them (maybe two years ago?), so I was excited to find a couple of unique-looking birds.

I love the ornaments that look realistic.  Such a cute bird!

But I couldn't resist this felted bird that reminded me a bit of the quirky birds that I sometimes paint.

Not surprisingly, Gemma picked a rainbow ornament.  She loves things with lots of colors!

After the garden store extravaganza, we headed out to the barn.  I was supposed to do a photo shoot with Gemma and her pony that afternoon, but I asked Gemma if we could move it to the weekend because I was starting to feel pretty overwhelmed, and it was literally the second day of the month.  Gemma agreed.  We did bring out a couple of props that we were going to use and tried them on Mini (the pony we are leasing for Gemma) and Donut too, because she can always use some desensitization work.

Donut models the antlers!

She wasn't quite so sure about this fly bonnet at first, but then she wore it pretty happily.

But despite my intention to move the pony photo shoot to the weekend, I ended up doing it on Thursday (was that only the third?).  We were supposed to be getting some nasty rain on Friday into Saturday and then potentially some rain or snow on Sunday into Monday.  So I mentally prepared myself for the photo session.

It ended up being a crazy day at the barn.  Mini's owner brought her little girl out and a friend of mine stopped by, all while I was trying to get pictures.  Plus, Mini wasn't breathing that well.  She has heaves and she has been increasingly struggling with her breathing for the past several months.  In fact, we are losing the lease on her at the end of the month because her owner decided to move her to another barn to see if it helps her feel better.  (The whole topic of Mini's health could probably be the subject of another blog...)  We are very sad to see her go, and I am determined to make sure Gemma has as much time with her as possible this month.

Anyway, because Mini wasn't breathing that great, she got meds and I had Gemma mostly walk her around and do a short bareback ride at the walk instead of doing the more active riding she had originally planned.  Also, Mini really hated the antlers.  She's normally pretty tolerant of just about anything, but not those antlers.  So we kept the pictures to a minimum:)

This is Mini's super unhappy face.

My friend is coming over and Mini is hopeful that she will be rescued.

And that concludes the first five days of December.  (Except now I have to run to the post office to drop off my property taxes because I totally forgot until just now and they need to be postmarked by today.  And then I have to run to the feed store to get hay for Donut.  Oh, and I need to pick up milk.  And yeah, work on a present I'm making that must be done by Monday.  Maybe I'll go to sleep at midnight?)  

P.S. Something interesting happened today.  I delegated one task to my husband - taking the dog to the vet - because I was really feeling like that was going to be too much for me.  I told him about it yesterday, and he agreed to do it.  So, he tried to have a normal Saturday, which involves a work out class early in the morning, reading the paper, and going grocery shopping.  Then he decided to add in a trip to the hardware store to pick up some outdoor decorations because he got it in his head that he wants to decorate the big magnolia tree in our front yard.  And he barely made it home in time to pick up the dog to take her to the vet.  He had a little bit of a meltdown and started yelling for no reason.  In short, he was acting like me.  I definitely felt some sympathy for him, but after years and years and years of always being the one who was acting kind of crazy and stressed, I kind of hoped that he would start to understand exactly how hard it is to incorporate Christmas activities into a normally active life, especially when one new thing (like taking the dog to the vet) gets added into your day.  It also made me feel a little better because it isn't just me being too sensitive or too lazy or too unmotivated or too something.  My reactions really are probably normal for anyone trying to fit in holiday stuff when there are other things to do too.  

P.S.S. And yes, I am still committed to trying to keep my month a little more low key.  I think after this weekend, I will have a better chance.  We shall see.  I will report back next Saturday!:)