Farewell to the Holidays and Good Riddance

Well, Bob and I spent another terribly anticlimactic new year's eve, sitting on the couch with the tv on and looking at each other like, that's it?? Though I can't say I'm sorry to see the Holiday season go. I really really like the holidays, don't get me wrong, and I don't *think* I'm a grumpy scroogy type of person. I like to eat, I LOVE the cookies, I like giving and getting presents. BUT. For me, the holidays are mainly about guilt. I constantly feel guilty. I have all these ideas beforehand about how I'm going to do things, and inevitably I never do most of them, and consequently I feel guilty. This year, my normal guilt was heightened by my mother guilt. Since this was the first Christmas Lilli was really of aware of things, I wanted it to be a PERFECT Christmas for her. Ah, yes, the word PERFECT. Therein lies the danger. I should know that I will never feel it's perfect, so I'm just pretty much resigning myself to guilt by taking up such an attitude. Nonetheless.

This year I wanted to decorate the outside of the house, and string garlands in the house, and bake Christmas cookies at appropriate intervals, so that there would be a constant fresh supply of them, and get the PERFECT gift for each and every person, and send Christmas cards to everyone that had little personal messages (and not forget anyone) and blah blah blah blah blah. We DID manage to get the Christmas tree and stockings up, and buy suitable gifts for everyone, and send Christmas cards to most people even though they were kind of cheapy and we didn't even manage to sign them (which I hate!). BUT. I know all this guilt is silly and unproductive and I just need to enjoy the moment and be happy and count my blessings and all those other similar cliches. Maybe next year I will have more time and energy. But my new year's resolution is going to be to expect less of myself and other people and just enjoy what comes my way. Of course, I am totally deluding myself. I will of course feel guilty next holiday season and probably all year long too. Oh, screw it. What's the point.

So, ANYWAY, despite the gnawing guilt, we did enjoy ourselves however. It was really nice to see so much of family. My brother was up for a week and thank goodness my parents made it back from Thailand just in the nick of time. (On a depressing side note, it's so hard to turn the news on these days because all they have are those terribly sad human interest stories about how some mother had to choose which child to choose from the tsunamis, or some baby who lost his whole family, etc. etc. I guess at least it puts my 'lack of cookie making' guilt into perspective.) And Lilli had a marvelous time playing with people and generally being charming. She's just so much fun to be around these days although she is a bit of a bossy pants. She's been climbing steps a lot and trying to put her shoes on by herself and only eating food that we're eating too and talking up a storm and generally trying to be a big person.

The one drawback to all the special time with family has been that Lilli's routine and stuff has been messed up and our progress in certain areas regressed a bit. She's been even more dependent on me lately, maybe because with all the family around she hasn't had as much contact with me. She's been constantly wanting to nurse again and been less receptive to Bob putting her down or comforting her at night. Hopefully now that we're back to normal pretty much we'll be able to get her back on track.

AND, now that we're back in our rut, hopefully I will have more time to blog about the mundane details of Lilli's life. I have to remind myself that this blog is mostly so that I don't forget these precious moments of Lilli's life and that I'll want to know about those mundane details in twenty years, even if you all could care less :) So hopefully (for me), I will be posting some of those shortly. Just as soon as I get over the guilt from not having cleaned up the holiday stuff yet. . .