'Tis the season to be stressful

Maybe it's just me, but I'm feeling a lot of free-floating stress this week, and it's a little frustrating when you're trying to continue to conduct business!

I know it's less than a week until Christmas. I know everyone is finishing up cooking, cleaning, wrapping, shopping, preparing for guests or whatever.

But I'm starting to feel like I'm the only one left who is still trying to attend to commitments and business affairs. And it's not like I'm all done with everything, either -- I still have shopping and wrapping to do.

Maybe it was unrealistic of me to think that we could conduct routine business meetings and finalize some issues. I guess. Unfortunately the business world doesn't stop even when Christmas is approaching. Oh yeah, for a day, maybe. But deadlines loom, decisions have to be made, and nobody seems to feel the urgency that I do. So is it just my tendency toward anal-retentiveness that is causing me such heartburn over this???

I'm beginning to wish it was just over for another year.

We decided this morning to take a pass on decorating a tree this year, after an unhappy attempt at purchasing one yesterday from one of the big stores here. It was mid-afternoon on a weekday, and NO one was staffing the area where the trees were displayed -- the real ones. When we finally tracked someone down, we were told that all we had to do was to get a big flat cart -- and then the staff member left. No help on pricing, trimming, wrapping. So we left too, very frustrated, and unimpressed with customer service.

We haven't had trees every year, to be sure -- we've traveled seven years out of the last last 10 Christmases so have had only two trees, although we've had Christmas decorations up. Our kids won't be with us this year. It seems like just one more thing that needs doing, at least right at this moment, and even if we left it up until 12th night (January 6), it still isn't very long to have it up. It was my suggestion -- and that was before I started feeling so frustrated about business affairs!

I guess it's just one of those days where things don't seem so merry and bright, and I'm missing family and my mother and father, and remembering (doubtless through a somewhat rosy filter) Christmases past with great nostalgia. Fortunately I'm also aware that these emotions will change quickly, and that this, too, shall pass.

Everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Cherish the moment and give thanks for what is right and good in our lives, and remember that the only person I can change is me.