Second Monday of Advent - Preparation
I know! I know! I missed a few days of Advent posts! Boo! But now I am back, and we’re into the second week of Advent: Preparation.
And of course, Preparation is one of the things that so often adds stress to this season of joy. How many Christmas cards do I have to write? How will I get the lights up in time? Who do I have to find gifts for?
I haven’t done much to prepare for Christmas in the last few years- it always seemed superfluous to decorate the house when I wouldn’t be spending Christmas in it. Christmas baking was a non-starter in a kitchen with as little counter space as I have (though now that we have a table it might be more feasible). There were always gifts to buy and wrap, of course, and I always intended to do Christmas cards, but this is the first year they’ve even made it so far as getting signed and addressed. And yet I wondered why Christmas always felt like it was sneaking up on me.
This year, as Tom and I are finding our relationships with our own families’ traditions changing, and now that even our idea of “home for the holidays” is changing, we’re trying to develop some ideas for what Our Traditions will be.
So last night, we had what I hope was only the first occurrence of a tradition that we will enjoy for many years to come. We had an early Christmas dinner with some friends at our home, and spent the whole day in preparation.
First was the trip to the grocery store. We had this idea that we were going to do lamb roast, but of course lamb is out of season, so the lamb roasts at the grocery store weren’t looking that great, like the butchers had needed to trim them aggressively. But they had a special on standing rib roasts, and some particularly good-looking roasts to choose from. After (I admit) a moment’s hesitation, we decided that Christmas dinner was exactly the occasion to splurge a bit on your loved ones… so we picked up a big ol’ roast and carted it home.
And of course, there was the housecleaning to be done. There’s the picking up all the stuff the cats have knocked to the floor, cleaning up the kitchen, vacuuming, trying to find spots for all the books and other objects that have found their way into the house, etc. So we put on some Christmas music and got to work- the front half of my house looks great! Our bedroom will look better after we do battle with the laundry monster again, and I am giving myself permission to not worry about the back room until New Year’s weekend, when we’re planning to do a purge of our belongings.
This year, I have been determined to put up SOME kind of Christmas decoration to remind me each day that it’s the Christmas season, and it’s not just cold and crappy for no reason, like in January. I won a wreath at my company’s holiday party (real pine branches! It smells great!), so that has gone up on our door. And then once the living room was clean yesterday, I rearranged some stuff on our shelves and got out our Nativity set. You can see that I didn’t really have an ideal place to put it where it would be safe from the cats, but we make do with what we have.
That’s two whole Christmas decorations, which is officially two more than I’ve had for the last several years. 
Most of our Christmas stuff takes the form of Christmas ornaments, which is great except for our total lack of room for a Christmas tree. So this is a bit of a victory.
So last night we had a fantastic meal, with wine, good friends, and spiked eggnog. What’s not to love?
Now, to finish those Christmas cards and get my shopping done…