I cry a lot, but I am so productive

a.k.a. The Story of My December

Dec 06, 2024

Disclosure: this newsletter may contain nuts: by which I mean affiliate links…

Ask me how prepared I am for Christmas: go on, ask me, ask me — purely so I can reply by showing you this photo of some of the gifts I wrapped last Sunday: on the first of December, no less:

This isn’t all of the gifts I had to wrap, obviously: these are just the ones that got wrapped in my cute, themed wrapping paper, which ran out much, much faster than I’d anticipated. I wrapped everything else too, though — even some things I wasn’t supposed to wrap, apparently, because they need to be charged, or have batteries put in, etc — and this is a real turn-around for me, because, in my previous life, I used to famously do all of my shopping on Christmas Eve, just before the shops closed.

But this year I am prepared, people. Am a girl scout, basically. Look, here’s the Christmas tree, with its only very slightly lopsided star on the top:

And, in related news, here’s a screenshot from my Fitbit, which gives you some insight into the real story of my week:

As Taylor would say, you know you’re good when you can even do it with a broken heart: or, in my case, when you’re so stressed and overwhelmed with all of things you need to do, and buy, and attend, and plan for this month that your brain takes to waking you up at around 2am every night, just so it can fit in some overthinking, with a side order of anxiety. I don’t have time for it during the day, you see, because that’s when I work, and shop, and tidy, and organize, and wonder how I’m going to adapt my complicated hair-washing schedule so I can have clean hair for all of the social events I have to attend, some of which are back-to-back, and that’s a whole OTHER problem, because that means I need different outfits for all of them, for both me and for Max, and, wait, is the school Christmas Fayre this week or next week?

Aaand breathe.

Or, you know, don’t, if you don’t have time for it.

Whatever.

I know I say it every year, but I hate this. All of it. I really try hard to enjoy it for Max’s sake (And I put on a pretty good act the rest of the time…) but I just … I just want to be able to sleep again, without my brain endlessly listing all of the things it needs to do and buy, and then worrying about how it’s going to do these things, and afford them all, and, oh yeah, also somehow write an entire novel at the same time.

Did I mention that it’s Max’s birthday 4 days after Christmas? And that we’re throwing a 30-person party1 in the village community centre for it?

Ho, ho, ho.

So, as much as I’d like to be able to say I’m the kind of super-organized person who thrives on chaos, and that’s why I had my tree up and all of the gifts bought and wrapped by December 2nd, the truth is that these are the signs of me already struggling to keep my head above water, and attempting to re-assert control over the few things I’m able to control this month.

Other signs of this:

My house is spotless, but I still feel like it could be cleaner, tbh.
The car boot is crammed full of clothes to be donated, glass to be recycled, and other random things that I had to get out of the house so I could breathe, but don’t have time to actually deal with.
The Evri delivery woman is the person I see most often right now, other than my immediate family.
Genuinely don’t know what I’d do without Amazon Prime.
My website has had a minor revamp, because messing around with it is my favourite way to procrastinate.
Now seems like a good time to replace all of those things in the house that have been bugging me for ages.
My lips are so sore they crack when I smile.
Should I just stick some of that Laneige stuff on the credit card, along with everything else?

And, of course, then we have the biggest sign of all, which is that I’ve been spending money like … well, like I actually have it. Which is awkward, really, because I don’t actually have it, but I find myself in a situation every December in which, having done literally nothing all year except sit at my desk working and trying not to spend money, it’s suddenly four weeks of back-to-back parties and events, and the only way I can deal with the stress all of this creates is by trying to spend my way out of it so I can at least feel like I’m in control of something.

Like, I can’t control how much socialising is required of me, but I can make sure I’m dressed appropriately for it, right? And I can’t do much about the fact that, once Christmas is over, we’ll still have almost two full weeks of school holidays left, at the coldest, darkest time of year — but I can buy a slightly odd looking cushion in the H&M sale, and, no, that doesn’t actually make a whole lot of sense, really, now you mention it, but it made me feel better at the time (And every time I look at the weird knot cushion, tbf), and I think that’s the most I can hope for from this month.

All of which is to say that I feel a bit like all of the good(ish) work I’ve tried to do during the rest of the year, with shopping mostly on Vinted and trying to avoid using the credit card, has been well and truly reversed this month, and, honestly, I kind of resent the fact that there’s a single day in the year which we’re expected to ‘celebrate’ for weeks on end, and for which we’re not required, exactly, but certainly encouraged to spend vast amount of money on, whether we can afford to or not.

But anyway.

In slightly more positive news, today I should break the 40,000 word mark on the next book, which I’m still really enjoying writing. I’m not sure how much more than that I’ll get done this month, because the next couple of weeks are going to involve a lot of complicated childcare juggling and attendance of school events during normal working hours, but it’s off to a good start so, you know, roll on January. And here’s to me (hopefully) getting a bit more sleep…

Until next week,