Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Still To Do


Restraint, 2008, Oil on Gessobord, 5x5

A bit of a hectic day here today and even though I am really trying to get some more small paintings done, and posted to my sales blog, I think the upcoming holidays are about to completely take over my studio time.

My husband is Jewish (he does Hanukkah with the kids) and I am not particularly religious, so our holiday is fairly simple, no visits by or to extended family (we don't have much extended family actually), just a lot of cocooning in our old farmhouse in the country. We play games, do a few jigsaw puzzles, we bake a lot of cookies and have at least one nice meal IN THE DINING ROOM and WITH A TABLECLOTH and using the CLOTH NAPKINS. That is a VERY EXCITING event! We probably give a few too many gifts to our kids, although we have been scaling back as they get older and also because are officially sick of injuring our feet by stepping on small toy parts on the floor. We usually give them art supplies and crafts kits (no beads anymore, there must be 5000 beads now caught in the cracks between our wood floor boards), books, music and maybe some electronics for good measure.

Even though we keep things simple, stuff happens and I get a little rushed anyway. At least most of the gift shopping is done now, but I still have to:

1. Decorate the tree. The girls will help but I need to put the lights on it first, which keeps getting bumped to "tomorrow" each day.

2. Put together some sort of holiday card. Last year I got to it so late that I just emailed a photo and Christmas letter to everyone, which was nice actually. So will do the same this year, but am not so sure it will go out BEFORE the 25th. So what else is new?

3. Totally bailed on putting up Christmas lights on our porch. Which is stupid because we had our porch rebuilt last year and lights would look awesome now on our perfect new structure, unlike how they used to illuminate every detail of the old sagging porch ceiling. Am going to try and put up a wreath though. I might be able to handle that although it seems a bit pointless at this late date. Maybe I can get one on sale.

4. I have to go do a big grocery shopping so that we can bake cookies. HA. Like we will get to baking cookies before the 24th.

5. And the rest of this week is littered with the all important hair appointment, other errands, another swim meet 80 miles away, a birthday party at the roller rink and who knows what else will crop up.

PS. Number 6 is to keep posting every day this month even though clearly I have little in the way of art to talk about. Will keep trying though, 'k?

6 comments:

Helen said...

sounds like it's full on and a wonderful time for your kids :D
hope you enjoy

Robin Pedrero said...

You have a long wonderful list of family traditions.

I LOVE THIS ARTWORK!!!

Mim said...

For some reason, everytime I scale back it gets more hectic too.
I have yet to crack the Christmas code.

Angela Wales Rockett said...

I was just thinking about this yesterday. Even though we really do the bare minimum for the holidays, it still takes over my life and my studio time disappears. Being sick for a couple of weeks didn't help any. Am hoping to remedy this somehow next year because no studio time makes me very cranky.

ps - did you get my email about a week ago?

Tina Mammoser said...

May I suggest pre-chilled cookie dough that you cut up and bake? That's my mom's "home baked" cookies. :) Plus it's still fun to do with the kids. (you can still smoosh and reshape the dough, or cookie-cutter it)

Have a happy Hanukkah and Christmas! :) (I've been happily singing along to some hanukkah songs from the Bare Naked Ladies xmas album.)

Tracy Helgeson said...

Thanks Helen, I think we are all looking forward to a break from school and work, although frankly it could go either way what with the moody tween and semi-hostile teen:)

Robin, it's been a nice evolution to this and I am happy to have some traditions.

Angela, I did get your email, but have been behind in getting back to people, as well as the comments here. Hope you are feeling better and can get back to the studio. I was sick last year before the holidays and keeping everything quiet and peaceful was SO nice.

Tempting to do that, Tina, but we are too used to homemade! Ok, my oldest son would wolf them down but whatever. Anyway, even though I am feeling a bit frantic about doing cookies, once I get to them I love the process. Hope you have a good holiday too!