Christmas Joys #5 - My Perfectly Imperfect Christmas (and Life)

This morning Tom asked me what I would like for Christmas.  I have received a tablet from my son and a gift certificate for new books for my Kindle from my stepson and his bride-to-be.  I thought that some new books for my Nook would be a fine thing, so we negotiated an amount and I was ready to start shopping.  I had read about a new book called My Perfectly Imperfect House and had added it to my to-read list.  It turned out that it isn't available for the Nook, but I am ordering it in regular format anyway.  Which brings me to the subject of the post.

I believe that we continue to do ourselves a disservice when we demand perfection of ourselves in decorating our homes, living our lives, and preparing or celebrating Christmas.  Most of us know the damage that trying to live the perfect life can do, yet we continue to consider the highest praise to ourselves, our children, our spouses, and others in our lives, "Perfect!"

I'm going to do my part to celebrate the imperfect holidays by coming out of the closet.  I have and will continue to stage photos of our Christmas (which, by-the-way, never seem to meet the standards of some of the lovely photos I see on others' blogs).  I will also edit my posts about memories of Christmases past to leave out anything that would embarrass family or friends.  But just for today, I am offering a glimpse of my perfectly imperfect Christmas through the photograph above.  This is untouched, except for the addition of the Christmas cards, which I brought in from the office.  It is actually a little less of a mess than it was last night, when some of the grocery items were still there.

The little lights were found with some old Christmas decorations.  I thought I needed them for a particular drab location in the house.  I asked Tom to buy some batteries and he did, but the lights are so old (marked down, according to the pricetag, to $6.95 about twenty years ago) that they go from dim to dark the further down the string you go.  I'm tossing them, and that drab location will remain drab.

I'm also tossing the little trees next to the lights.  They look like they've been through an Oklahoma tornado.  Maybe they have been; we found them with the lights.

Next to the trees are two cans of room spray, in Christmas scents.  I like to use candles and natural greens for their aroma.  There are very few natural greens in my yard and I haven't had time to go collecting in other places.  I'm not sure where those other places are; I picked up some pinecones one year at rest stops when we driving from Memphis to Oklahoma but I'm not sure that was legal.  I would like to have some greenery and pinecones for the bowl in the center of the table.  Anyway, natural scents and candle aromas are nice, but sometimes you just need a spray!

The box of candy next to the spray is for my dad.  My husband bought it, even though I am planning to make peanut butter fudge for my dad.  Tom says that dad likes the storebought candy and I'm not going to take that personally.  By the way, we're giving my brother-in-law and his companion two potatoes and two sweet potatoes for Christmas.  Maybe I'll explain that later.

In the back are the ingredients for chicken tortilla soup that I'm making for Christmas Day.  I gave up on Christmas dinner years ago, because we couldn't get everybody together at one time.  This year, I'm doing soups.  This one is a no-brainer, which I will need.  We are also having desserts.  I got one relatively complicated recipe (for me) from a high school classmate who is a wonderful cook.  She has already answered a couple of questions for me, such as "How do I keep the cake from sticking to the bundt pan?"  (Answer:  let it cool before you try to remove it.)  Thanks, Helen!

Next to the soup ingredients is a box of green tea.  I'm trying to drink more tea and water and less Diet Coke.  Notice that the box is unopened.  I have had two glasses of eggnog and three Diet Cokes since the tea was purchased.

Now for the Christmas cards.  You'll note that there are two boxes of cards and a list of names.  Some of the names are checked off and some aren't.  If you don't get a card from me, assume that you made it to the list, but not to those checked off.  I tried to get those out of town mailed first, so if you don't get a card, it's just that I ran out of time.  Or stamps.  Or money.

Hope you have a Perfectly Imperfect Merry Christmas!  If you have a Perfect Christmas, I don't want to hear about it.  (Just kidding -- I'll just clean up my own description to leave out the imperfect parts, just for you!)

Annie