Christmas stress

So, my brain has (un)officially taken a break. I am suppose to work this week, apart from Thursday and coming in a short short while on Friday but my brain has already checked out (for the Christmas holiday!). I am staring at my notes “to do this week” and I feel like I just want to go home, like the rest of the people I know who have been off at least since Friday….

I’m not really whining, I chose this, I know. I am merely stating that it is a problem when you are supposed to work; actually trouble shoot two things and then clone a third thing, that your brain wanders off and isn’t focused on the task at hand.

What’s on my brain? Oh let’s see…..
* How to make Southern dressing…. (corn bread, chicken and celery. How hard can it really be?!)
* Cook a turkey (what temperature, which size, what kind of thing to you need… How hard can it really be?!)
* Do I really need a ham [for my own tradition] and in that case, where can I find one that is smaller than 12 pounds….
* Christmas presents, need wrapping, Do I really need to wrap Santa’s gifts to me? Maybe I should just never mind the whole present idea and leave it to be “a new Christmas with no presents and not too many expectations at all” (good luck with that.)
* Should I try and plan a trip to Church on Christams eve or Christmas morning? (I’d prefer morning, the trip at evening time messes up everything else, but all people I know are there on the Eve…. And really, is it that important?!)
* Calling people from home and wishing them Merry Christmas. (When? How? Why?)
* Should I send thos christmas presents I have bought but not really sent yet, and now there is now chance ever they will make it on time? (or just leave it til I go home and maybe even not give them then?)

But the main thing today is to stop the brain from going into repeat mode of “this was not really what I thought it was going to be and why isn’t it like I thought it would be and how can I make it what I [thought I] wanted it to be”. Complete waste of my time since there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I can do about this. It is what it is and more than half of it is the pressure from “people around who are asking a lot of inconsiderate questions or telling statements*”. I know, it is in them rather than in me but I am such a good internalizer that I start fretting and thinking I should do the same thing they do. The same thing they want. Funny that my Myer-Briggs doesn’t show that though… not really anyway. My work persona is slightly different from the Piglet-inspired-like Eeyore who dwells in the middle of me.

And by the way, who cares what other people think anyway?!?** Or if you get any Christmas cards or phone calls? And before you tell me, I know this is pity party and that of all the times in the world, Christmas week is not the time to ask things of other people (friends and family) but seriously, it is hard not to when it is so obvious being so far away from the lot of them and all by choice …. Let’s talk about that another day. The beating my body takes from my brain for “choosing to move and make things complicated”.

For now, I’ll focus on the cloning issues that I really need to resolve (Wake up Brain and smell the coffee) and of course, how much food do I really need to buy and can I make the dressing the same day (most likely yes) and the cookies I can bake tonight or tomorrow…. And the meat balls will be done on the 24th, since I need to find bread crumbs somewhere in some store around where I live. Seriously, it shouldn’t be as hard as it’s been so far.

With this lovely and seasonal stressful blog post I wish you all a Merry Christmas :). And don’t forget; it’s not about who has the most clean/decorated/fancy house or the most expensive presents, it’s about love and family and friends …. And all the other people in the world.


* One small example "Oh, it must be so hard for you not to be with your family for Christmas. You must miss them very much". well.... let's just go with "duh". Key thing for me the last couple of weeks have been to think, when these things are said to me, "this is in their heart, their deepest fear". I don't know if that is the "correct" way of dealing with it, but it has helped with some of the worst comments...

**if you can’t see Irony, I’ll let you know it is there. Dripping of this sentence like a pig on top of a fire pit. Huge amount of grease…

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a little update on the pity party. This entered my mind; "It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything." I guess that would make it a bit easier?! But I don't really agree since it is very exclusive and you would have to have no relationships at all. And wasn't my whoel, whining about the "people around me" and "the ones I love"? Ah well, it's cloning time. Extra points if you can identify the movie.