Annual Holiday Crafting Panic

Last week was a WEEK y'all.

I don't know what it is about this fall/winter, folks, but we have been battling one little illness after another, always staggered so there are only 1 or 2 of us sick at a time, but it always rotates through the whole family. The disease of the day always seems to hit me last (thank goodness!) but Ellie is hit worst, poor girl. It's just really hard to understand sneezing and coughing when you're such a little thing.

My camera died last week too- right in the middle of putting up our tree. It was a great family time, even if it went un-photographed. I'm hoping the camera is only minorly dead; it's with a friend who is checking it out for me. 

I had a mini- panic midweek last week about Christmas. It should really be referred to as the "Annual Panic" because it truly is in early December every year.

You know the one most creative types have before gift giving holidays- the one where you look at your crafting list and say, "HOLY SMOKES! How on Earth did I ever think I could get this all done??? I'm a crazy person and I'm not going to finish any of it and there will be NO CHRISTMAS this year all because of me, the single-handed ruiner of Christmas!!!"

Or maybe that's just me.

So I clicked on my Christmas spreadsheet (because I'm that sort of geek) and prepared to talk myself down from that place. I looked through the list for each person and thought... you know what? I'm not in bad shape. AT ALL. I'm actually super close to done as long as I stick to knitting every night.

And instead of rejoicing in that truth and feeling a burden lifted off of me, my brain went crazy trying to add even more projects to the Christmas list. Because if the pressure isn't on, maybe I missed someone to make for? Or someone already on the list needs an extra sweater or something.

REALLY?

So I did the smart thing and I'm sticking to my original list.

I have enough Holiday Crafting years in me to know that *something* will go horribly wrong with a project or two and I'll find myself ripping and re-knitting and wrapping after midnight on Christmas Eve to finish that last thing.

And if magically I find myself done early with nothing else to do?

There are MANY items waiting in the queue.