Christmas..love/hate relationship

My love/hate relationship with Christmas...Every year right after Christmas I vow to do things differently the next year...not get so stressed out, less light on the tree, less decorations around the house, skipping baking cookies, and skipping making chocolates. But every year I get super stressed, put more lights on the tree, add more decorations to the house, bake more cookies, and make more chocolates!!! So, here I am 11 days before Christmas at 11:00pm laying on the couch worried and stressed that I won't have everything "perfect" before the BIG day. I have so much left to do...cards to finish sending/making, chocolate left to make, cookies waiting to be baked, gifts to wrap, friends to visit, illness to get rid of, house to clean....and the list just goes on and on. So, why is it that I can't stop myself from going Christmas crazy and enjoying the true meaning of the season. I think I want so much for my house and gifts and everything else to be so perfect that I just can't let myself relax. I know I will still be adding decorations up until Christmas Eve. I love having the house decorated for Christmas, but end up busying myself so much that we never have time to have friends/family over to enjoy the decorations with us. I wanted to have a Christmas party, but there's no time. I think I need to learn to make time for those types of things. Heck, I put a lot of work in to decorating my house, I want to show it off. Sigh.

I think part of my stress this year lies with my whole house falling ill off and on, well more on then off this past month. So illness in the house means the male half lays on the floor and dies....okay so he's not dead, but I was tempted to poke him with a stick a few times to make sure he was still breathing...men. Yea I've got the same cold, but I'm functional...maybe not friendly, but still able to do something other than lay on the floor and die. That was mean, but I don't have the energy to care right now.

Back to my love/hate relationship with Christmas...had to slip in my illness vent :) I want to know how mom's with more than one kiddo pull of Christmas of any sort. I am finding it nearly impossible to do anything while Mackenzie is awake. I feel bad because she wants to help so badly...especially with cooking...that is her new thing lately. But at 23 months old she can't safely help make cookies other than switch on the mixer, which in itself is not the greatest task for little arms that are all over the place. So, I've resorted to cooking once she has gone to bed or is napping...if Jason wasn't dieing on the living room floor it may have made life easier...but requesting assistance only got me a grumble of how stuff he his head was or something along that line...in retrospect I am beginning to thing he is protesting secondary to being told no to a weekend trip to Dallas to visit a friend...but that is a whole other rambling :) So...I guess maybe I should write myself a note and stick it in with my Christmas decorations when I put them all away this year reminding myself of my vows to not loose my mind the following Christmas...but who am I kidding...it wouldn't be Christmas with out stress :)