What is it about Christmas that makes me go crazy?

Every year in December I lose my grip on sanity. Why?

Ordinarily, I don’t consider myself a perfectionist to the point of driving myself or other people crazy. However, something about the Christmas season stirs up my strongest insecurities and weighs me down with the conviction that whatever I’m doing, it’s not good enough. I’m not baking enough. I’m not entertaining enough. I’m not buying enough gifts. The gifts that I am buying are lame. The ones I bought last week are obviously totally inappropriate. I have ideas that are SO much better this week, but still probably not good enough. Someplace out there is the perfect gift for each one of my loved ones. I just have to find it and then they will see how well I know them and of what value they are to me.

My usual solution to the gift dilemma is to wait until the last possible moment to commit to anything in gift-buying so that there’s no time for second thoughts. Then I realize that the perfect gift was the one that I should have ordered two weeks ago and can’t be bought in stores anywhere the week of Christmas.

One thing I do because I want to during December (as opposed to the many things that I do out of obligation) is send Christmas cards. Even in that area, though, this temporary insanity sucks much of the joy out of sending them. A form letter? Can’t do it. How can one write a one-size-fits-all letter? That’s not good enough. Cards out of a box with our names under the pre-printed greeting? What’s the point? It’s the chance to actually communicate with long-lost and not-so-lost acquaintances that is attractive to me. Why give up that chance to communicate? So I write multiple letters that contain the same basic information but which are each somehow customized to their recipients. The problem is that this requires a substantial time commitment, even with the aid of a wordprocessor and cut-and-paste. The list of people who get letters isn’t very long.

My church family has a tradition of exchanging cards each year by dropping them in a special box in the church foyer. It’s rare to have a note included with the card. Again, I ask: What’s the point? If all we’re doing is wishing each other a generic Merry Christmas, why bother putting so much time and effort and money into it? Why not just wish each other a Merry Christmas in person and be done with it?

This year I came up with a partial solution to the church card exchange. I created my own "church families are special" greeting card in PrintMaster (by Broderbund). Ahh... much better. Hallmark doesn’t make a card that expresses the appreciation I feel for this group that so often has filled the role of extended family for me and my husband and children. But I can feel good about creating one card that embraces each family group individually but equally and expresses my appreciation for them in a special way during the Christmas season.

So I made the card. I printed multiple copies of the card. I signed our names. I wrote names on envelopes. I piled up the cards to take over to the church for distribution. I even went so far as to carry them into the church. Then I carried them back home. I realized that I had failed to include children when putting names on the envelopes. I realized that there was a chance that a few of the people might ask, "Dave & Marsha who???" I realized that just one slight modification would have made the card so much better. I realized there was a flaw that will likely be pointed out by a few. Perfectionism caused paralysis again. I had to push it aside, add the children’s names and our last name for the cases where there might be doubt and take those terribly imperfect homemade cards back over for distribution. It’s only a pile of greeting cards to people I see every week, often multiple times each week. Why would I let myself get in such a twist over making them perfect?

Making my own cards has allowed me to expand my mailing list by providing opportunity to customize the greeting itself to fit various groups. In this first year of the empty nest, I’m missing the interaction I’ve had over the years with my peers in the community, the parents of my children’s classmates. I made a special greeting card for my favorite people from that group. I’ve completed around 60 cards (mostly going to people either in the church or the community) and have another 30 or so to go. Most of the cards that will actually include a letter are left and I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed, wondering if I’ll ever complete this task. And this is one of the most enjoyable parts of Christmas for me! I don’t even want to think about the gifts!

Christmas is a week away and I’m not even close to ready. I have a bare evergreen tree in my livingroom and colored lights running down the banister. That’s the extent of my decorations thus far. There are no Christmas goodies in the house and all my kids are coming home in the next 48 hours. (Yea!)

Maybe it’s the absolute drop-dead deadlines of the Christmas season that do this to me. Not only are there multiple obligations that could be done with excellence if there were a little more time in which to do them, but the deadlines are mostly non-negotiable.

Obviously, blog posts need to go way down on my list of priorities. In defiance of my compulsiveness during this season, I will now post this in its imperfect first-draft form. Maybe. After I fix up just a few minor problems.

I’ll see you after Christmas.