Holiday Musings

Why are holidays so stressful? I think it's because we feel like there are certain things that we have to accomplish, or we will upset someone else. It's interesting to see which holidays get stressful in my family.

My side of the family is pretty mellow, and that part doesn't stress me out, beyond the fact that I have to mail presents out of state, which is never fun. The other stress is figuring out what to get everyone. It becomes quite difficult. My sister just has "fallback" gifts, which are usually sports team logo clothing. Which is fine. I just try to come up with something different. Sometimes, it's a bit odd. Last year, I sent my sister a floating pool light that does colored designs and shapes inside the pool. I have no idea if it works or not, or if it is complete crap, as my sister and I don't talk much. It's not that we don't like each other. We like each other fine. We get along. We're both talkers, so it's not that, either. It has more to do with the fact that we're just busy with our lives and our children and just don't have the time. I feel guilty about it, though. Heck, I feel guilty that I didn't send Christmas cards for the last year or two. I'm a tad embarassed about that. I try. I buy the boxes of cards, but never do anything with them. I buy birthday cards ahead of time, but never send them. I bought my dad's birthday card 3 weeks ago, but only mailed it yesterday, and his birthday is today.

The more stressful things are Thanksgiving here in the town I live in. My husband has this quirky family. If we go to one house where we are more likely going to enjoy the holiday, it angers the other house, who feels that we should go and have dinner with her family, to whom we aren't related and barely know. That's lots of stress, right there, if we decide not to go to her family. We finally got tired of trying to do the politically correct thing and just did what made us happy. Although, I kinda wonder about it, though, because none of the family invited us this year.

My only stress during Christmas is buying for the 21 people that we have to buy for, give or take a couple of people. I've forgotten one of them in the past, so now I try to keep lists, to make sure I haven't forgotten anyone. Most of us that live here locally, pass around lists, to make it easier to shop. It also means that sometimes that person gets multiples of the same thing. I think 3 of us gave my niece the same DVD. I wasn't in the mood to try and ship it back to Amazon, so I kept the copy that I purchased. It's still in it's plastic wrapper, sitting on top of my DVD shelves. I'll open it eventually, as I like the movie. But how many copies of Grease does one girl need? I don't have any, so it made sense to keep it.

Speaking of older movies, a few years back, I purchased the DVD's of the Evil Dead series of movies. I couldn't find a DVD of Evil Dead 2, just a VHS of it. I managed to find a copy today, so I purchased it. I've been struck by the purchasing frenzy lately, so hopefully that will help me through the shopping season. This morning (or was it last night - can't remember now), I purchased a Nintendo DS bundle, with Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. I wanted that game, but you can order the special edition DS Lite with it, which is gold and has the triforce logo on it. I couldn't help myself. I had to buy it. My spouse and I aren't exchanging gifts this year, aside from a possible trinket, because we just purchased a new, several thousand dollar shed for the backyard. We can afford it, but it is still rather expensive. Still, you gotta have something under the tree, so I have a feeling I'll probably purchase more for my spouse than that. It must be that time of the year.


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I have decided that I have an obnoxious new kitten. He's such an attention whore - at least with me. He ignores my spouse most of the time. I feel kinda bad about that, but I missed having a kitty. The first kitty that we had when we got married, was definitely my spouse's kitty, even though he was supposed to be mine. When my spouse and I were engaged, I wanted a kitten. My parents didn't want cats any longer, since our previous one had gotten old and had to be put down, due to renal failure. She had peed on the bed curtains and clawed the doorways, so they didn't want to have to deal with that sort of thing any longer. So my then fiance and I picked out a kitten at the pound, and the cat lived with him at his apartment. The cat loved me when I didn't live there. When I moved in, he pouted for a month or more. Cracked me up. He finally decided he liked me again, and would sleep on my hair. Aside from that, though, he preferred my spouse's lap to mine, any day. The cats that we have had between then and now, never lasted long enough to really have a favorite. This one has been around for a few months now, and seems to be doing okay. He doesn't seem to be interested in going through the doggie door and into the outdoors. Kinda surprises me. We had been keeping the litter box in the garage with those cats, encouraging them to use the doggy door to use the litter box. Their food was in the garage, on top of the dryer, to prevent the dogs from getting to it. For this cat, when we first brought him home, we locked him up in the computer room for a few days when we had to go to work, just to keep him separated from the dogs. We just left his litter box in here for a while, so he would know where to find it. After a while, we just decided to keep it here, because he doesn't seem interested in the doggy door. I'm afraid if we put it out in the garage, he'll start exploring the wide world around the house and get eaten by a coyote. I'm guessing that is what has happened to most of the cats that we have had (with the exception of the one we had to put down due to injury). A friend of mine told me that we shouldn't get a new cat because "it never ends well." I thought it was pretty funny, while apt. As long as the cat seems uninterested in the outdoors, his food and litter will remain here in the computer room. The only downside to that, though, is if the cat decides he wants to play with his dry food instead of eat it. He'll pick it up with his paw, curl up his paw and try to put it in his mouth (by 'hand' as it were), and drops it on the desk (his food is on my desk to keep it out of reach from the dogs). After it lands on the desk, he bats it around, where it eventually ends up underneath my keyboard. He'll pick up my keyboard with his paw, and bat the cat food around, eventually knocking it off the desk, where the dog will eat it. Then, he'll start the process all over again, with a new piece of cat food. Stupid cat. :D


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Now, as far as my previous post in the blog - just to update - things are better. I'm moving past it, and I don't think about it so much. Everything isn't rosy yet, but it is getting better.