Ah maaaaan!

I may be looking forward to Valentine's Day, but it just clicked in my little brain that I have to *plan* something for it.

Yikes.

Paintball maybe? Bowling? Princess-Leia's-gold-bikini-clad ninjas?

Conversely

I freaking love this time of year, even with the stress.

I love the music, I love the pretty bows-n-paper, I love the lights, I love the ornaments, I love sparkling blue-tinged snow at dusk, I love Scrooged & The Disney Christmas Carol (the one with Mickey Mouse), I love spending time with dear friends and family, I love freakish amounts of food (an artery clogging good time), I love driving around looking at other people's decorations while drinking hot chocolate, I love planning gifts for people ...

It's all kinds of awesome.

I just wish I had more time to really relish each and every moment. I would spend weeks preparing it all, if I could.

A smidge overwhelmed

I really need to find a way to coerce ... er ... trick ... er ... convince my boyfriend to help out with winter holiday stuff. So far, I've hung lights, put up decorations, ordered and wrapped a zillion gifts, designed a Christmas card photo insert and printed out addressed envelopes. He has ... uh ... he definitely looked at the photo insert. After I asked. And he ordered a couple of presents online. Which I'll probably wrap. Oh, and he came with me to grab fun Christmas food at Trader Joes and Costco.

I still need to write in, stuff, stamp, and send the cards. Wrap more gifts. Burn and wrap the annual holiday CD. Organize like the Dickens for our impending two week trip. Etc.

His contributions are all helpful and appreciated, but I can't help but want a little more assistance. I mean, I'm working 5 billion jobs and I feel like my personal to-do list is just growing and growing and growing ...

Mostly I just wish I didn't have to initiate it all. It feels like any failure on my part to make a concerted effort to make Christmas happen will result in my most favorite-est of holiday seasons passing me by. Thank goodness I'm going up to my parents' place, so I can sit back and enjoy other peoples' holiday efforts for a little while.

Of course, no one is making me do extra work for the holidays. I just really, really enjoy getting cards and looking at purdy decorations. I figure I should put some effort into making this time of year nice for other people too.