The reasons Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
I found that little snippet in one of those joke e-mails that people pass around and I just loved it so I thought I�d share it with you all.
Christmas is soon upon us. I am almost ready for it even. Though truth be told, I�ve been much less in the holiday spirit this year than last, and my holiday spirit was smaller last year than the year before. Hopefully, it�s not something that is going to dwindle more and more each year. But there are a few holiday traditions that I hold dear and perform them each year no matter my mood.
We all have certain things we do at Christmas that makes it our very own kind of Christmas, things we don�t do during the normal course of the year. There are the things we hold dear from our childhood, then the traditions that we begin as we become adults. Over the last few years, I�ve developed a few traditions of my own that I have to do at Christmas to feel like it�s Christmas.
I make my own Christmas cards. I started doing this in 2002 and once you do it, it�s really hard to go back to store-bought cards. I have friends who have kept my cards year to year and at Christmas they put the all out. Last year, I made almost 200 cards but only passed them out at work. I got food poisoning right before Christmas and never got the cards out in the mail. This year, I only made about 50 because I had all the cards left from last year, but I�m happy to say that my Christmas cards went out in the mail on Saturday. I have some left so if you want to get one, leave me a comment or send me an e-mail to Janet Planet OC @ aol.com (but remove all the spaces).
The other thing that I do each year is I make home-made caramels. It�s a family recipe that I made for the first time about 10 years ago. It�s a lot of work, but they are so good. They are so good that I look forward to them every year, but because I only make them at Christmas, they stay special. 2 years ago, I made 12 double batches of the caramels. I was giving out caramels right and left. Last year, I made about 8 double batches. This year, I made 2 double batches. A significant decrease from the last few years but I just didn�t have the time for all that work this year. But I may make one more small batch for our family Christmas party. We�ll see. I also made up my own fudge recipe this year and it came out really good. So now I�m going to have to add that to my Christmas confectionary repetoire. I have visions one year of making all kinds of candy. A few years ago, I made up my own recipe for peanut butter cups and they were to die for. I�ve also stumbled on a few hard candy recipes that I would like to try, and a few years ago I made peppermint bark and I keep thinking I�ll make that again. But to do all that, I�d probably need to take a few days off from work and that didn�t happen this year. Maybe next year I�ll do that and open up a Candy company in the kitchen for a few weeks�
Normally, I would wrap my presents really early so that I can just look at them under the tree. They are, to me, as much a part of the decorations as anything else. But I just haven�t been that on the ball this year. I did do about half my shopping (mostly just those things that I need to give away before Christmas day � for friends, etc) and those gifts are wrapped, but I still have to shop for my family. I�ll be doing that on Friday, not only is it Payday, but it�s a company holiday so I�ll be off of work. I usually get gaga for decorations and all of that, but this year, I just didn�t catch that bug. It is partly because my Christmas decorations are in storage and most likely, since the storage space was rearranged, they are in the very back and I can�t get to them.
This weekend was kind of rough for me emotionally, hell, everyday is rough for me emotionally. What I would like it so crawl into a coccoon and come out a different person, but that isn�t gonna happen. But, while writing my Christmas letter, I did realize that I actually had a good year. Despite the emotional fluctuations, I did do a lot fun things and accomplished some things I�ve been trying to accomplish for a while. There were a lot of things I didn�t do yet, but that�s okay. Here are the things I accomplished:
Got a new job
Got a new car
Go to at least 12 movies
Learn to knit (though I forgot as soon as I learned)
Visited San Antonio
Visited Seattle
Visited Denver
I have a whole list of other things I had hoped to accomplish this year, but it�s okay. I�m going to roll them over to next years list and we�ll see how much I can get done next year. This isn�t my New Year�s resolution entry so I�ll save them for that entry.
Yesterday, in the middle of the day, I was feeling rather sad and upset. I was in the middle of making caramels, my parents were out, Brian had gotten sick and cancelled on our dinner plans and I just felt lost. But instead of throwing the world�s largest pity party, I grabbed my house key and a Starbucks gift card and walked to the local starbucks for some coffee. Now you have to understand � I am a Southern California girl � I don�t WALK anywhere! So this made me feel like I accomplished something. I got out of the house, I moved my body and I shook a bad mood. Some days, that�s accomplishment enough.
