The Ghost of Christmas Past

So I have a lot of thoughts about Christmas right now, some good and some bad, but mostly I feel pretty indifferent.  It's not that I'm a Christmas grinch, I just feel that the holiday would be just as good (if not better) if we all forgo exchanging presents and just spent the day together.  Easter, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, all of these holidays are great and there is no pressure buy, spend, and shop and also the final pressure of coordinating when and where we are going to see which family and making sure everyone is happy and no one feels jipped.  It's a lot of pressure and I always feel like it falls on me to be the coordinator and make sure everyone is happy.

Item #2
Every Christmas / New Year's I'm reminded of my early Christmases with D.  This is usually the time of year he gets cranky and frustrated and we used to break up during this week.  Granted this hasn't happened in 3 or 4 years, but I just remember being broken hearted around this time and any little glimmer of stress I see in him, I get a little flustered inside.  He has been stressed at work but a real champ at home as we have been planning our first Christmas Eve / Day schedule together with both our families (in the past we would do our own thing and this year we are making the rounds together and he is having to make concessions like NOT SPENDING THE NIGHT AT HIS MOM'S HOUSE ON XMAS EVE -- CHILD!)

Item #3
Why is it that all I want to do lately is stay at home, relax, watch movies and cuddle, yet we are working, sitting in traffic, running around town, and doing the Christmas party marathon? IIIIIII juuussttttt wannnnttt toooo dooo nothinnnggg (but it's against D's nature, he wants to do everything all the time and I'm a bum because I want to stay home). 

Item #4
Seriously PRN?  You thought that because every Dec. in the history of the company has been slow that Dec. 2010 would be no different?  WRONG!  Your head honcho conference pullled every supe off the floor for a week, you let everyone and their mom take vacation, you have a huge roll out, new SOP, we have to learn to do our jobs upsidown and inside out and you want to move our desks to the other side of the room?! all during our busy random chaos?  Thanks.

Item #5
Luka is on Santa's naughty list and is getting a huge lump of coal in his stocking.  I wanted to get him a sister right after New Year's, but now I'm not so sure.  The past six months he has developed a terrible attitude and this morning it culminated into a 9am barking, snapping, cowering, hair raising, growling, peeing himself incident that left both D and me in a funky mood today.  He is harboring some neurotic OCD protectiveness over the bedroom and when D gets ready in the morning (or whoever gets up first), if he comes near the bed, or walks past the bedroom door, barking and growling ensue.  It sucks.  I spray him, I let him outside, I spank him, I talk to him...nothing works.  He gets sooo wound up over it and I've decided we need some space for a while so he will be sleeping in the office until further notice.  I moved his bed in there this morning and he didn't seem to care too much bc he goes where his bed goes.  The next few mornings he'll be fine (he's totally happy when we are all together and can wake up slowly and pet and relax -- part of me thinks he gets so defensive bc he doesn't want D to go to work in the a.m. and wants us to all be together all the time) but we'll see if he acts up again on Monday.  People who have kids may not agree, but I feel like this is testing my parenting abilities and I hope I don't have to resort to using the water bottle on my real kids someday.....

I know that everything will work out fine and all the things I'm not looking forward to, I will appreciate in the end, but right now I need to get through the longest workday in history so I can get the ball rolling and get this Christmas cheer in gear. LALALALALALAALALALA.  arg.