I always LOVE Christmas, I love the whole season, the lights, the shopping, the music, all of it. Usually by this time I've started Christmas shopping & am all into it.
This year I do have the decorations out & I've started listening to the music, I love looking at the lights, etc but feel almost like I'm just going through the motions. I haven't started any shopping whatsoever, in fact I haven't even thought about what to get anyone.
I'm so focused on the baby, getting the nursery done, & impatiently waiting for March to get here that I feel like Christmas is just another thing to get out of the way before the baby can come. So weird because I look forward to Christmas pretty much all year.
Anyone else having a hard time getting it in gear this year?
Re: Not feeling the Christmas spirit this year
Completely understand- usually my biggest thing is spending a lot of time finding the perfect/thoughtful/meaningful gifts for friends and loved ones. I LOVE giving gifts. This year they will be lucky if they get a tin of cookies. I am all ready for Christmas season where my DH and I are concerned, but definitely being an Ebeneezer Scrooge about sharing
I am kinda there too. We are doing Christmas away and since we are closing on our house on New Year's Eve it seems pointless to drag any decorations out.
Next year.... a full size tree and a real Christmas with my three favorite people :0)
So I'm a weirdo and I'm totally being a Buddy the Elf this Christmas.
I'm already done shopping. Tree is up, I've watched Buddy the Elf and Home Alone already. I've made all my crafts for the hand-made presents I'm giving out. And I bought a Swarovski annual ornament and I'm going to start collecting them every year so some day I can give them to my daughter and tell her I started when I was pregnant with her. I am just so excited that after trying and hoping and dreaming for so long, I'm FINALLY going to have a LO for all this fun Christmas stuff next year.
BFP 4/18/12, M/C 4/27/12 at 6w6d
BFP 7/1/12 - Counting down to our little girl, EDD 3/8/13
I knew everything would be over shadowed by the baby, so I actually implemented a "25 days of Christmas" thing with my husband. Both of us LOVE christmas time, so I know it's special to him too. We took alternating days (I got odd days, he got even) and either wrote down a holiday thing to do, or we got one "buy" day per week-where we could just write something sweet to the other person (with the understanding that since he isn't as good of thinking of things as I am he got to schedule looking at christmas lights, wrapping presents, and looking at light sLOL). then every day from Dec 1-Dec 25 whoever didn't write that day gets to read the card.
Since we did that, i'm now pretty excited about the season because there's something different to do every weekend, and some week nights.
Im right with you! We are closing on our house new in mid Jan. I dont want to buy any gifts. I dont felt like the hustle of Christmas and I love Christmas. I dont want to listen to music or watch my two favorite Christmas movies Four Christmas and Elf.
bah! humbug!
Ha! We will be "decorating" a plug in 8" tree my parents got me as a joke for the very reasons you mentioned.
I'm in the same boat...mainly because of our finances.
We put our tree up last weekend and have put up some decorations. I've purchased all of the stocking stuffers we need for my step kids. And I think we know what we're getting for our parents. But other than that, I'm feeling like I'm in a slump.
We've always sent a holiday photo and letter out to friends and family but I'm feeling very overwhelmed to do that this year (we usually send out approx. 80 a year). I can't come up with any creative ideas for a holiday photo and I just don't feel like writing a letter. Nevermind the cost of printing off the photos and the stamps for the letters really add up.
I also like to do a bunch of baking to give to friends as presents over the holidays. I like to bake and I would love to spend a day or weekend doing so, but I don't feel like doling out a bunch of money on ingredients.
I think I'm just worried about the fact that we've barely made any baby purchases and we really should start doing that instead of spending money on Christmas. I know Christmas shouldn't be about money...but it's hard for me to do the things I like to regularly do for the holidays without spending money. :S
I'm also not really looking forward to the holidays because we're spending it away from my family for the third year in a row. The last two years we spent Christmas with our friends in the city in which my step kids' mom lives so that we could split Christmas with her (since she's not willing to alternate Christmases with us). Once again, we are supposed to be splitting Christmas with her this year. However, our friends will be spending their holidays elsewhere this year so we're likely going to be spending Christmas with my MIL. Not looking forward to that at all.
BFP #1 09/02/11 M/C 09/12/11 8w6days
BFP #2 07/18/12 Baby S born on his EDD 03/23/13
SS - age 12...SD - age 8...DS - 13 mos.