I’ll be honest and say I’m not. I never am at this point, though this year I think I’m almost ready for it to be over.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Jesus. And I love celebrating His birth. I DON’T love seeing Christmas decorations for four months. I refuse to put the tree up before Thanksgiving. And I’ve only just relented to putting it up before the calendar flips to December. And then it comes down the 26th or 27th (if I can make it that long).
Yep, I’m one of those.
But to be fair, November is a busy month. We have two birthdays and Thanksgiving within two weeks of each other. Sometimes my second son’s birthday actually falls on Thanksgiving Day (because he was BORN on Thanksgiving).
This year I’ve added an extra pressure to myself by doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which you may have heard of before. If not, it’s when writers everywhere try to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That equates to little more than 1500 words per day (with no days off). And to break it down further that’s about six 8×10 pages (each page equals about 250 words). So six pages/1500+ a day, 50,000 words in 30 days. It’s time consuming and sometimes a little stressful.
So…November is busy.
And then December rolls around. Christmas parties. Christmas decorating. Christmas shopping. Wrapping presents. Busy, Busy, Busy. You feel it too, don’t you? We’ve become so busy fulfilling the wishes of family, bosses, or the masses that we forget the one whom we are celebrating.
My little picture here, illustrates what I mean. Jesus is in there somewhere, but with all the other things fighting for our attention, He gets relegated to the sidelines. Those other things are brighter, more in your face. Jesus waits patiently and quietly.
So, now that November is almost passed, what are you going to do to MAKE December different than it’s been before?
I’m going to make sure I
- spend more time conversing with the Father.
- make Jesus the focus of our celebration.
- pray more fervently for my family.
- love on those around me.
- give smiles and greetings even when people are grumpy.
What change will YOU make this year?
Blessings,
You’re November and December sounds like my family’s, except instead of two birthdays in Nov., my son was born in November and my daughter on Christmas day. Some past Christmases have felt like a blur. We have purposefully eliminated many activities from our calendar in order to keep the focus on Jesus and family. This is especially important as our kids get older and more independently busy.
Although I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, I’m a big fan. How are you coming along, Ginger?
Each year, I get my decorations up, cards sent and shopping completed by the end of November, so December is spend relaxing with family and friends.
I was going to ask the same thing as Jill. How is NaNoWriMo going for you?
Now that my boys are away at college I expect my December will be quiet. I’m almost finished with my Christmas shopping–I don’t like the crowds, so I try to be done before Thanksgiving.
My oldest son wants to be here when we put up the Christmas tree, so that will go up this weekend while he’s home. Other than that we have one Christmas concert we are going to and that’s it. A nice quiet , and relaxing season at my house.
Happy Thanksgiving! :-)
What a wonderful Christmas present, a daughter. And as they get older, they do get harder to corral. Mine are gone every which way a lot of the time. It’s harrowing trying to keep up with everyone’s schedule.
I have just over 2400 words to reach the 50k goal. I had hoped to reach it this past weekend, but a stomach bug sidelined me. It wouldn’t seem like it would affect my writing too much, but every time I spent time on the computer I’d get a headache. I wound up watching a LOT of TV, which I don’t usually do.
Thanks for asking, Jill.
As for shopping and decorating…well, the shopping is mostly done–well, now that I think of it, maybe not. We’re doing several large items for kids this year and then money for clothes. I leave a lot of the decorating to one of my daughters. She loves it. I do the tree, she basically does everything else. :) And I haven’t sent cards in ages. LOL
Sounds heavenly, Kimberly. We normally try to get the shopping done before now, but I’ve put a hold on my husband’s buying finger (we mostly shop online). He loves to buy in excess. This year, we’ve made a plan and I’m doing my best to stick to it. :)
As of right now I have 47,576 words on my Nano book. My goal is to reach 60k by 11/30, so we’ll see. :)
Thank you, Melissa. Happy Thanksgiving to you too.
While I’m sure some Canadians emulate the American traditions of putting up the Christmas tree in November, we have never done so. We usually go into the mountains to cut our own sometime the second week of December, and it goes out before the new year. Our house is very small and the tree takes up a lot of space, so it’s long enough for us.
You ask, “Are you ready for Christmas?” and my reply is… “Um, no, but it’s a full month away and I don’t think I should be ready yet!”
I’m sorry to hear you were sick over the weekend, but nice job on your word count! You got this!
I can relate to being busy from November on. My 2 best buddies from college and I have birthdays in a 5 week span. The last birthday occasionally happens on Thanksgiving! The holidays are easier for me now that my kids are adults and we aren’t carting them to different local city festivities! Happy Holidays!
We used to have 8 birthdays in December, but many of the birthday folks are gone now. We lived away from family for the past 12 Christmases and so we rarely put up a tree for the two of us. Now that we’ve moved close to family again, we are enthused about decorating (though it’ll be sometime AFTER Thursday for sure). Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
If we cut our own tree, it would probably be later, but good ol’ faithful resides in the attic when not in use. :)
Does it really get easier when the kids grow up and move out? I wonder…somehow, I’m not sure that’s going to be the case at my house. I hope we’ll still celebrate together. That’s probably a lofty expectation, though. :/
If it were just my husband and I, we might get a small (very small) tree to decorate, but it would be minimal because he doesn’t do any decorating.
That’s fantastic, Ginger! Good job.:)