(no subject)
Holidays. If you love Christmas for everything that it is, please do not read the rant under the cut. It's personally therapeutic and makes me feel better to write it, but is unfair to those with a holiday spirit.
I have a love-hate relationship with this holiday. It's a difficult time of year for a lot of reasons, a lot of which involves love-hate relationships with family, consumerism, Christmas music, and my credit card. Well the credit card is not a problem this year as I picked up some extra work on the side, which made me very happy, and a little more optimistic about work in general.
It's the shopping and the presents that sometimes gets me. The sales are starting before Thanksgiving now, and I feel buried sometimes under the inexplicable pressure to get gifts for everyone. Like I should be doing this, especially when I can afford to, and don't be scroogy it's Christmas after all. Maybe I am just crazy and live under a psycho blanket of guilt over everything.
The past few years the immediate family has drawn names a la secret Santa to cut down on the spending because, hey, times are tight and everyone feels it. But this doesn't seem to make me feel any better. Like I should still get everyone a little token something to say I remember them and still care, like a decent person would do.
I know I should be saving the money, logically, and yet I still feel like a selfish bint.
I'm twenty four years old and it's still all about the presents, just in different ways. I wish it weren't. I wish we could all get together and make ginger bread houses, mull cider, play games around the tree, and exchange stupid little gifts that no one needs but make everyone smile.
The thing is, I like getting stuff for people. I like to buy gifts, make things when I have the time, I like to do things and be helpful, but not when it feels like this. Not when it's driven by reasons other than 'just 'cause I want to, and want to make someone feel nice.'
It's especially difficult with family I don't really know how I feel about them. Like a few certain people on my Father's side that we didn't really associate with as kids. Or teenagers. Sure, we always *could* get in touch with them. But what 16 year old is going to call up someone that their own parents won't talk to except under duress?
le sigh.
I don't know what to do. There are some things this holiday I'm really looking forward to, but they are not the things that society and my guilty blanket tell me I should be looking forward to.
And the older I get, the more I come to the entirely frustrating realization that so many other people feel the same way, including many of my family members and yet we continue with the same stupid traditions that make everyone feel guilty and crotchety simply because *this is what has always been done and so this is how it is done now* (big booming voice of impending doom. Doooom!) Why?
I swear to (insert deity here) next year everyone is getting a cheerful heartfelt Edward Gorey Christmas card, some candy, and I'm spending December baking cookies. Fie. I am spiteful, but I feel better.
Anyways I have finally ordered business cards yay! Which were initially much more expensive than I had anticipated, but worked out to be very reasonable considering I'm getting a batch of 1,000 beautifully designed cards, full color front and back, matte finish, and I am actually quite thrilled. They even match my website design :)
And with a batch that large I can hand them out left and right, and they'll still last me a good long while.
I never thought I would be so excited about this.
Ah well. All I need to do is get through the Holidays and I can start on a fresh pile of things for the etsy site and work on stuff for spring.
I'm beginning to come around to thinking small. Over time I've slowly diminished the amount of stuff I've been trying to do, and I have come down to A- Bow Ties and B- Parasols/Umbrellas (alongside C- freelance work, alterations, repairs, and private commissions that are much more carefully considered before accepting these days.)
I used to think that if I wanted to succeed I would have to do absolutely everything...but...no. That's not right at all. That's just overwhelming and unproductive thinking.
Anyhoo. I feel better I go do things now.
:) Kitty
I have a love-hate relationship with this holiday. It's a difficult time of year for a lot of reasons, a lot of which involves love-hate relationships with family, consumerism, Christmas music, and my credit card. Well the credit card is not a problem this year as I picked up some extra work on the side, which made me very happy, and a little more optimistic about work in general.
It's the shopping and the presents that sometimes gets me. The sales are starting before Thanksgiving now, and I feel buried sometimes under the inexplicable pressure to get gifts for everyone. Like I should be doing this, especially when I can afford to, and don't be scroogy it's Christmas after all. Maybe I am just crazy and live under a psycho blanket of guilt over everything.
The past few years the immediate family has drawn names a la secret Santa to cut down on the spending because, hey, times are tight and everyone feels it. But this doesn't seem to make me feel any better. Like I should still get everyone a little token something to say I remember them and still care, like a decent person would do.
I know I should be saving the money, logically, and yet I still feel like a selfish bint.
I'm twenty four years old and it's still all about the presents, just in different ways. I wish it weren't. I wish we could all get together and make ginger bread houses, mull cider, play games around the tree, and exchange stupid little gifts that no one needs but make everyone smile.
The thing is, I like getting stuff for people. I like to buy gifts, make things when I have the time, I like to do things and be helpful, but not when it feels like this. Not when it's driven by reasons other than 'just 'cause I want to, and want to make someone feel nice.'
It's especially difficult with family I don't really know how I feel about them. Like a few certain people on my Father's side that we didn't really associate with as kids. Or teenagers. Sure, we always *could* get in touch with them. But what 16 year old is going to call up someone that their own parents won't talk to except under duress?
le sigh.
I don't know what to do. There are some things this holiday I'm really looking forward to, but they are not the things that society and my guilty blanket tell me I should be looking forward to.
And the older I get, the more I come to the entirely frustrating realization that so many other people feel the same way, including many of my family members and yet we continue with the same stupid traditions that make everyone feel guilty and crotchety simply because *this is what has always been done and so this is how it is done now* (big booming voice of impending doom. Doooom!) Why?
I swear to (insert deity here) next year everyone is getting a cheerful heartfelt Edward Gorey Christmas card, some candy, and I'm spending December baking cookies. Fie. I am spiteful, but I feel better.
Anyways I have finally ordered business cards yay! Which were initially much more expensive than I had anticipated, but worked out to be very reasonable considering I'm getting a batch of 1,000 beautifully designed cards, full color front and back, matte finish, and I am actually quite thrilled. They even match my website design :)
And with a batch that large I can hand them out left and right, and they'll still last me a good long while.
I never thought I would be so excited about this.
Ah well. All I need to do is get through the Holidays and I can start on a fresh pile of things for the etsy site and work on stuff for spring.
I'm beginning to come around to thinking small. Over time I've slowly diminished the amount of stuff I've been trying to do, and I have come down to A- Bow Ties and B- Parasols/Umbrellas (alongside C- freelance work, alterations, repairs, and private commissions that are much more carefully considered before accepting these days.)
I used to think that if I wanted to succeed I would have to do absolutely everything...but...no. That's not right at all. That's just overwhelming and unproductive thinking.
Anyhoo. I feel better I go do things now.
:) Kitty