Sunday 14 December 2008

Christmas Doesn’t Have To Be Perfect





Having been stuck in bed for a week, I am most definitely behind with my Christmas preparations. The tree isn’t up, gifts aren’t wrapped, some gifts still haven’t been bought and others that I’m making aren’t finished and cards aren’t written which is a bit of a git considering that some of them have to go abroad. Luckily, the presents that have to go to Norway won’t be opened until after Christmas anyway (I won’t go into the reasons here and now) so I don’t have to worry about those not getting there in time. I just hope everything that I’ve ordered for Paul comes with enough time to be sent down to London as I’d hate him to get his pressies late.

There’s still food shopping to be done and the mince pies and stuff that I was planning to make are just going to have to go take a walk this year. I must get the rest of the vodka into the kilner jar so that the cherry vodka’s ready on the day, though; I’ve been looking forward to that too much to miss it.

A few days ago I was getting my knickers in a right old twist over all this but I’ve come to the conclusion that Christmas really doesn’t have to be perfect. The day will come and go regardless of whether or not I’m prepared and once it’s gone it really won’t matter anymore. Nobody will remember it for the home-made mince pies, or whether or not the house was squeaky clean. And I’m sure half of those on my Christmas card list won’t really give a toss care whether or not they get a card.

It’s just one day and really not worth all the stress it can cause. I’ll do what I can and enjoy doing it - what I can’t do I won’t do and that’s that. End of story. Not having a perfect Christmas doesn’t make me a failure and nobody will be hurt, life will just poodle along as usual and Christmas will be forgotten for yet another year.

Sharon J

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Image Credit: Krisdecurtis

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're so right Sharon. To often we think everything has to be just perfect, but that's not what Christmas is all about..

I hope the presents turn up for you in time...

Anonymous said...

I totally agree, and it's a good job, because it's not gonna be in our house :)

Anonymous said...

This is how I've felt about it for a lot of years now and I always wonder why people get so stressed out at Christmas.

Sharon J said...

@ Apieceofwood. Either I've got another bug or the first one's come back with a vengence cos I'm laid up again and feeling very sorry for myself. I've a feeling Christmas is going to be very UNperfect this year.

@ Move to Portugal. Ours has never been perfect but we usually have the tree up and least and the presents wrapped. I haven't even got that far yet.

@ Susan. Funnily enough, I started stressing about it more when the kids grew up than I did when they were little and Christmas actually meant more. Maybe there's a link between me getting all materialistic and wanting everything to be perfect.

Catz said...

Just concentrate on getting better Sharon. Believe it or not one of our better Christmas's was one where I was getting over a bad bout of flu - wobbly legs etc yuk, that wasn't so good - but once I gave up on the idea of a perfect Christmas all the stress lifted - I chilled out on the sofa and let the family take over, they may not have done things the way I would have done but they did what they could and I had lots of cuddles and hugs.