Holiday choices

Christmas rushes to meet us, and frantic activity keeps the house humming. Of course it creates more disaster too. We closed our theatrical season for the fall last weekend and I was sure I would have time to correct the lack of housekeeping that has occurred because of costuming three shows back to back. I was wrong, we leave town in just a few days and holiday tasks keep forcing vacuuming to the bottom of the list. I do have a couple of good excuses, I was under the weather for a couple of days after the last show, and our 20 year old water bed sprang a couple of leaks. Leaky beds cause extra laundry, and cleaning tasks one just doesn't keep on a todo list. The bed is full and quiet, tonight the real test of patched seams begins.

Now for decisions, I need to decide what is unnecessary in the next couple of days because I really want to participate in all the social events on my calendar before we leave town. Said social events will eat up all evenings prior to travel and force gift purchase and prep into the earlier hours of the day, which in turn forces housekeeping into the very early am hours, which I really hate. I guess this means we come home from Christmas break to a dirty house.

I could become a raving lunatic and turn off all electronics until we leave town but that would certainly put the kybosh on holiday spirit, somehow I have failed to instill the need for order in one's surroundings to any of my offspring. While I feel the clutter strangling me they are one and all oblivious. "Mom it's just gonna get messed up again" I am regularly told. We also are in the home stretch of gift creation and construction, each and every homemade gift leaves a trail of craft materials in its' wake. So surrender seems the only sensible thing to do, I will just have to close my eyes and take long slow calming breaths as I trip over tasks in my house.