A better title for this might be, There's Only Two More Weeks to Christmas! But you'd have to read it with a desperate/panicky note in your voice to get the full effect.
Having such a late start to Advent this year felt wonderful at the time but now I see that it lured me into a false sense of security since the late start just meant a shorter season to get everything done that needs to be done. I finished the majority of holiday shopping before Thanksgiving but there's still so much to take care of before C-Day. Now, I suppose referring to Christmas Day as C-Day sounds a bit combatative for the birth of our savior but every mom knows that a successful Christmas season requires a detailed battle plan and I need to get working on mine.
I feel behind after an awful migraine took me out last weekend and I didn't accomplish half the things I thought I'd be able to, but my main goal this week was to finish up our Christmas cards and, save a couple of addresses I'm still waiting on, I think I'm finally done. Having so many friends who are also in the military means that every year we have to go through the whole address list and figure out who moved and who didn't and track down all the new addresses--one day we'll all be retired and have our nice, stable, forever homes...of course by then we won't have cute pictures of babies to include on our cards so they might not be as exciting to receive. It always takes me forever to get our cards out because I have a deep aversion to mailing out cards that aren't at least a little bit personalized so I persevere and send out cards the new-old fashioned way--with a family picture on one side and an actual written message on the back. It feels like the polite thing to do. Plus I'm the worst at keeping in touch with old friends so it's also a bit of a penance. It would go faster if I invested in a return address stamp, but alas--all the moving means I never do.
My goals for this coming week are to finish wrapping all the gifts and to get my cookie baking done and loaded in the freezer. I love having a freezer full of Christmas cookies ready to pull out all season long, but I really have to gear myself up to actually get baking them. This year is even worse since I'm off gluten and I can't even eat them. So you can think of me this week as you're baking things you might actually eat and I'm baking things that I can't and crying on the inside. Maybe it will be a new Christmas kitchen tradition. Or maybe someone will invent gluten-free Christmas cookies that don't taste gross.
If I really get going, I'd also like to firm up my plans for the Twelve Days of Christmas and make a meal plan for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. We will see!
Do your families have food traditions for Christmas dinners? This year I want to make a meal plan and then just always serve the same thing every year so that I can free up the mental energy involved in holiday meal planning and use it for something more important--like remembering where I left my phone or whether or not I turned on the dishwasher :)