Well it’s Christmas tomorrow.

It kind of snuck up on me this year. I mean, I’ve been preparing for it, but all of a sudden it’s tomorrow, and I don’t feel ready for it.

I usually love Christmas, but mostly because of the warm, twinkly, tacky lights, and baking with my mom. We don’t have a big family here – just my parents and my sister – so Christmas was always a pretty laidback affair. I think that’s what I liked about it. There were no huge Christmas parties to attend, or baking for the entire extended family.

Just Christmas day, sitting around the tree, opening presents, and eating chocolate. And of course, a delicious roast chicken, and afterward – the yule log cake. I think I just loved the yule log cake because it looked like a log, and I thought that was so cool.

This year though, it’s been more stressful, and I think that it has nothing to do with it being Christmas. Christmas just had the bad timing of coming after last week, which was pretty horrible. Instead of last week being the week to start preparing for Christmas, and finishing gifts, it became the week of the emotional breakdown.

So instead of working away to finish one of my best friend’s presents (a painting) I spent most of my time exhausted and trying to numb out. I’m feeling a little bit guilty about that, but trying to administer some self compassion. It’s not working yet. I’ll let you know if it does.

So to combat the guilt, and the overwhelming sense of “oh my god I’m not doing enough, I need to be doing everything right now“, I’m actually going to do nothing. Until next Monday (December 29th).

So that’s like…5 whole days without working. I might have a nervous breakdown. I actually can’t even face my morning pages right now, because I’m feeling so wound up. So until next Monday, I’m just going to walk away. I’m going to celebrate Christmas, see my friends, eat lots of food, and spend time with my family. And I’ll figure the rest out once this is done. ‘Cause right now, I’m gonna give myself an aneurism if I keep trying to do everything at once.

I am so bad at taking time off. So bad. So I’m going to practice forcing myself to take a break, and turn off for a while. Wish me luck.

So for everyone who celebrates Christmas, I hope you have a good one, that is as stress-free as possible, and full of wonderful happy moments. And if you aren’t celebrating Christmas, then I hope you have a wonderful Thursday anyways!

And I’ll see you all next Monday!

Love, Sarah