Christmas Time

At work, we're always introducing new opportunities. They get built, and then we have to support them. One of my co-workers likes to suggest a Jenga tower, but I'm not sure that's accurate, because we don't remove pegs from the bottom, we just continue to add more pegs to the top. The tower gets taller and taller. We feel busy constantly, maintaining the stuff that's been built and then trying to figure out how to get anything new done.

And that makes me think of the Christmas season we just went through. We had made a mindmap the year before of everything that "meant" Christmas - buying presents, attending holiday parties, special stuff at church, etc., etc., etc. One of the things on the list was to watch a bunch of movies... Holiday Inn and White Christmas for Lori, Family Man for me. But we didn't get to them. And we didn't get to some other stuff, either.

Even our lights got put up late and haven't been taken down. The tree's still up, too, because there's still presents underneath it for family we haven't had a chance to connect with.

Like Christmas cards. I made sure we got our yearly portrait done early -- by reminding Lori. She's the one who made the reservation, picked out all our clothes, got the kids ready, even picked up the photos when they were done. And then I didn't even help with sending out the photo cards we bought.

And I felt bad about that. I tried to think why there was so many things I didn't get to this year and yet why it still felt so stressful.

And then I realized... I didn't stop doing anything. I tried to add it on top of everything else I was doing. I took a week off in early December, but didn't have much time to do stuff. And then around Christmas and New Years, I didn't take any time.

Next year, I really need to not just look at everything that I want to do, but what I will cease doing for the holiday period.