I just hope not to get a cold or flu. For whatever reason I get one about a few days before Christmas! LOL!

Wipe down with Wet Ones after all public contact. Works for me.

Since my diagnosis, I'm taking an approach with my farm work that will carry over to holiday projects. I have a stash of old business cards. Every morning I break down the day's work into half hour segments and write each one on a card. There might be four for tractor work, six for the greenhouse, etc. Now, I'm adding cards for decorating and wrapping presents and all those things too. I don't go overboard for the holidays, but I genuinely love them, and I enjoy all the things that I do during December. I also write out cards for exercise and other forms of self care, and for practicing (half of my income comes from my work as a musician).

What I inevitably discover is that I have written out a minimum of 36 hours worth of work for the day. And of course, few days are straight shots of time - there's errands and appointments and gigs to fit in.

So I pour a second cup of coffee, reshuffle and restack the cards, ask myself how many cards I can genuinely play that day based on my fatigue level, eliminate a few, prioritize a few, maybe (gasp) delegate a few. Now, I'm fortunate because I can still 'play' quite a few cards every day, but I used to do a whole lot more, so this is all relative.

But the reality is that I've only got enough resources to play a certain number every day, and I sure as heck don't want to waste them. If I have to choose between clean baseboards (I've heard that people do that) and making the ancestral Christmas cookie recipe, that's an easy call for me.

I mark them off as I get them done.

Tracking this, which is as simple as dating the cards and stacking them back in the box they came in, allows me to look back every week or so and see if I did a good job assessing my abilities. (There is room for improvement, but I'd rather aim a bit high.) This will help me decide about adding farm staff next year, or figuring out if I should pay someone to clean my house. You know, so I can see what clean baseboards look like.

This has helped me enormously, because it's allowed me to remove a lot of the guilt by reducing this to math. There are only so many hours in the day.

Order gifts online.
Stay warm at home with lots of herbal tea and my robe.
Carpool to family get gatherings with other relatives, or my bf so I don't have to drive far alone.

It's finally getting cold down here (cool to some of you, warm to others) close to the Gulf Coast so I've gotten my wool coats and gloves out of the closet. Hey, we're supposed to get down in the 20's next weekend. I'm about 2/3's finished with shopping and since I've a 15 yr old at home she wraps all but hers. We'll drive to south-central Florida for Christmas at Nanny's.....not a big deal though because I enjoy driving. As my hands deform and turn away from my thumbs that actually makes them fit the steering wheel quite well.

I'm in southern CA and it's sooooo windy here today. It's 65 and it feels like 40.

Last year I bought almost everything online.....same this year. What a convenience. Also, if you don't have Amazon Prime, you might want to look into it. Saves on shipping.

I always said I would never give impersonal gifts like gift cards. Guess what?

We did gift cards last year, except for the grandkids. Little ones were easy. This year, I went to the mall with a friend, and ended up buying a lot of presents. Just a few more to get! And none to Hong Kong. That is out of my comfort zone. Who knows when you have to get it mailed off? Or if it will arrive? We had a wonderful Japanese student. I wrote his address down exactly as he wrote it, put on the right amount of postage, and it came back twice with a question mark.

I'm not putting up the big tree this year. Just some decorations like a St. Nicolas decoration for the niche, and my Willowtree nativity on the dining room hutch, as usual. Plus a few ornaments and things around the house.

The other thing I am thinking about not doing is so much baking. I just eat half of it anyway, since the kids grew up. (When they were home, it was a challenge to get any of the baking! Even the stuff I froze and hid!)

I just bought a whack load of books - commentaries and Greek stuff on Amazon. I have this thing about books, and I always forget that Amazon has so much else. The big issue with Amazon, is that the Canadian version is so much more expensive, .com won't ship a lot of things to Canada and the dollar difference. When my daughter-in-law lived here she always ordered on-line and had it delivered originally to her own box, at the Washington border, and later on a border shipping company. But getting across the border can be a challenge. Esp. The number of books I bought.

I'm going to the gym to to improve my energy and conditioning.

nearly all my shopping has been online. and early. less stressful that way.
I'm nixing all forms of card sending, digital and snail. just don't feel like it!
I'm just doing what I enjoy this year and not obsessing over gifts. It has been liberating for me.
I normally check with people about gift ideas and fret that we'll duplicate a gift and scour sites looking for the perfect gift for someone but then I realized that the same people don't return that favor or obsess about what they buy me, so I'm not doing that anymore. I'm buying them what seems good on impulse and I'm done!

Touche!!!

Gave up being the Thanksgiving and Christnpmas Eve host. (Husband is sad but he doesn't really know how much work it is)
Bringing favorite yoga mat "home" with me
Family changed the adult polyana to a donation a couple of years back and I like that we do that. Kids aren't kids all in college and desperate for money so I write them checks.
I miss being the "center" of it all but the last 4 or 5 years were beyond hard. Don't really need more than my husband a little tree and our pups.
Wishing you all the very best!