My Christmas spirit has been decidedly absent this year, and I’m not entirely sure why.

I grudgingly sent out some Christmas cards.  Only 1/3 of the number I sent last year.  Our tree is up and decorated, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten with trimmings.  My Christmas shopping is not done.  I just feel…lost, and tired, and completely unmotivated to even care about the holidays.

Since I’ve been eating a far more restrictive diet than usual as of late, I thought perhaps the lack of energy might have something to do with not getting enough iron.  I picked up a really good multi-vitamin for women this week and I’ve been taking them daily all week, which I hope will improve my energy levels.  If not, at least I know that I’m getting enough vitamins and calcium.

Next week Jack’s parents arrive, and they will be staying with us until after Christmas.  Now understand that I love my in-laws.  Anyone who pays attention already knows that I prefer them to my own family.  Regardless of how much I enjoy having them, it’s still more complicated having other people here for the holidays.  When it was just Jack and the kids and I, it didn’t matter if dinner was late, or if the food didn’t turn out.  I didn’t have to deal with the mess immediately after eating, and I didn’t feel pressured to have the kitchen sparkling while suffering from a turkey coma.  It’s just…different.

V is going home for the holidays, to spend Christmas and New Years with her family.  While I can fully appreciate and understand her desire to be with them at this time of year, it’s still disappointing in some ways.  I’m not going to begrudge her a trip home, and if I were in her shoes I would surely do the same thing, but I’ll miss having her around.

Jack has decided that we are going to have a quiet New Years Eve together this year, as a family.  I can’t really blame him, since we’ve thrown large parties, or attended parties, pretty much every year since Luke was a baby.  We haven’t spent New Years at home for a long time, and I understand his reasons for wanting to keep it low-key this year.  We can put the kids to bed a little early and then open a bottle of bubbly (I have a few choice bottles which I’ve been squirreling away for just such an occasion).  I’ll plan to have some hors d’oeuvres prepared and we can curl up by the fire and ring in 2009 together, just the two of us.  That actually sounds much better to me now than it did initially.

I discussed my thoughts with V earlier today and she chided me for being too hard on myself.  “You always put such high expectations on yourself” she said matter-of-factly.  She’s right of course, she generally is, since she can read my mind like it’s an open book.  We talked about what exactly I felt needed to be done before Christmas, and now that I’ve put it into perspective, it doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming. 

It still feels forced, and I’m still not feeling very ‘in the spirit’ but I think it’s coming from feeling under-prepared.  I’ve had a lot of different priorities this year, and Christmas hasn’t been one of them.  I’ve had the business class I am taking via correspondence.  I’m not completing assignments on my self-imposed schedule, and it’s drawing a lot of my focus away from everything else.  I’m really, really enjoying the course, don’t get me wrong.  It makes me feel accomplished in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time.  It’s also very time-consuming.

I’ve also been devoting a lot more energy to myself.  Making time to go to the gym, and eating right.  I’ve been writing less, which plays on my mind more than I like to admit, but I still haven’t found the perfect balance amongst all of my commitments and hobbies.  I hate to be so cliche, but it’s like juggling so many little balls, and when I seem to get almost all of them into a proper rhythm, one or two fall. 

I live in a perpretual state of feeling behind.

I’ll be glad to see the holiday over, but in the mean time I am going to make a more concerted effort to enjoy them while they are here.