death by holiday
so did everyone have a holly jolly xmas?
it was lovely, family-filled, and joyous for us but it was pretty crazy getting there. i've tried so hard to eliminate added negativity and stress in my life but one thing you can't get rid of is the holidays. it's a love/hate thing really. this year i definitely felt like time was not on my side, somehow i was behind in everything, and nothing seemed to be going my way.
for 1, i'm still getting our cards out. and i'll let you in on a little tip here: once you resign your self to calling them "New Year's cards" instead of "Christmas cards" it's so much better psychologically. i was late in ordering my cards, though i designed them myself. unfortunately, there was a printing error and an entire side of my card was left blank. 100 cards, all missing the side that said "Happy Holidays From Our Family To Yours" and with our names. soooooo, i wrote happy holidays on 100 cards. actually, i wrote personal messages which was kind of nice, and honestly, i tend to write a brief personal note anyway, but did mean that our already late cards were even later. and usually we do a holiday letter, well, not this year. with the the card being enough of a task (and big thank you to erika for putting my last year's mailing labels into an excel file and doing a mail merge thing-y and printing my '07 labels, yay!) i'm just happy that they're done. almost. i still have a couple to get out. oh, and after a couple fun discussions with customer service the printer is giving me a print credit, so that was a relief.
and 2, i swear amazon was trying to sabotage my holiday. i ordered a bunch of gifts online this year. the same things i would get at the store, but why deal with the crowds? the traffic? the icy weather? so, i ordered a bunch of stuff nice and early and decided that even though several things needed to end up on the east coast, i would have them sent to me first so i could personally wrap everything and then i'd send it on. well, everything was late. so late, in fact, that as i tracked it all online i determined that it wasn't going to make it in time and i still had to brave the crowds, the traffic, and the icy weather and get new gifts for everyone i had already shopped for. ugh. and yes, because i must be karmicly doomed-amazon finally came through and everything landed on my doorstep the very day i went to send the new gifts.
this is why i swear, the holidays tried to kill me. it's like a giant rollercoaster, between the stress of the cards and shopping and the relief of Christmas eve & day when we were finally able to sit back and enjoy the togetherness, it's insane!
it really has been great though, seeing all our families and looking through all the cards and letters from everyone we care about. it's a great way to reflect upon the past year. despite the occasional stress, we are so unbelievably fortunate and happy and healthy it seems petty to even write about the stupid cards.
i hope everyone had a lovely holiday season :)
***
aaahhhh, the gifts. these little gems cost me quite a lot. and i don't mean money. more like my sanity.
and here they are, all ready to be shipped out to loving family members.
oh! and teacher gifts! don't even get me started on teached gifts! here they are, in all their half-finished glory. next time you hear me say something about "handmade teached gifts" please slap me.
it was lovely, family-filled, and joyous for us but it was pretty crazy getting there. i've tried so hard to eliminate added negativity and stress in my life but one thing you can't get rid of is the holidays. it's a love/hate thing really. this year i definitely felt like time was not on my side, somehow i was behind in everything, and nothing seemed to be going my way.
for 1, i'm still getting our cards out. and i'll let you in on a little tip here: once you resign your self to calling them "New Year's cards" instead of "Christmas cards" it's so much better psychologically. i was late in ordering my cards, though i designed them myself. unfortunately, there was a printing error and an entire side of my card was left blank. 100 cards, all missing the side that said "Happy Holidays From Our Family To Yours" and with our names. soooooo, i wrote happy holidays on 100 cards. actually, i wrote personal messages which was kind of nice, and honestly, i tend to write a brief personal note anyway, but did mean that our already late cards were even later. and usually we do a holiday letter, well, not this year. with the the card being enough of a task (and big thank you to erika for putting my last year's mailing labels into an excel file and doing a mail merge thing-y and printing my '07 labels, yay!) i'm just happy that they're done. almost. i still have a couple to get out. oh, and after a couple fun discussions with customer service the printer is giving me a print credit, so that was a relief.
and 2, i swear amazon was trying to sabotage my holiday. i ordered a bunch of gifts online this year. the same things i would get at the store, but why deal with the crowds? the traffic? the icy weather? so, i ordered a bunch of stuff nice and early and decided that even though several things needed to end up on the east coast, i would have them sent to me first so i could personally wrap everything and then i'd send it on. well, everything was late. so late, in fact, that as i tracked it all online i determined that it wasn't going to make it in time and i still had to brave the crowds, the traffic, and the icy weather and get new gifts for everyone i had already shopped for. ugh. and yes, because i must be karmicly doomed-amazon finally came through and everything landed on my doorstep the very day i went to send the new gifts.
this is why i swear, the holidays tried to kill me. it's like a giant rollercoaster, between the stress of the cards and shopping and the relief of Christmas eve & day when we were finally able to sit back and enjoy the togetherness, it's insane!
it really has been great though, seeing all our families and looking through all the cards and letters from everyone we care about. it's a great way to reflect upon the past year. despite the occasional stress, we are so unbelievably fortunate and happy and healthy it seems petty to even write about the stupid cards.
i hope everyone had a lovely holiday season :)
***
aaahhhh, the gifts. these little gems cost me quite a lot. and i don't mean money. more like my sanity.
and here they are, all ready to be shipped out to loving family members.
oh! and teacher gifts! don't even get me started on teached gifts! here they are, in all their half-finished glory. next time you hear me say something about "handmade teached gifts" please slap me.
posted by joanna at 9:54 PM
3 Comments:
Joanna..you seriously crack me up. I can hear you talk as you type. Anyway, I was reading your past post, the one about the great perfume search. And I'm happy to say that I'm a Pleasures user for 5years now. Nothing mixes with my phermones like Pleasures. I'm currently using Pleasures Exotic which is even more fab. Hey question..I saw a comment left by a Jodi. Is that our Jodi from our Kaplan days???
you're hilarious - and somehow despite all of the madness and roadblocks along the way you still come up with adorable gifts and cute cards! It's a good thing it's just once a year :)
sunny-yes! that's our jodi! i haven't seen in her in years, i think the last time was when andie was a baby. do you keep in touch with her at all? i'm hoping we can meet up sometime soon. how are you doing? it's baby time soon right?? how exciting!!! miss you!
erika-thanks! next time i am definitely buying gifts! ....unless i find a really cute idea in a magazine!
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