Holidays, values, goals?

This week is Jessica's Holiday in Hand class and I just got done skimming about twenty blogs that had posted links in the forum to their holiday values and goals (to get some ideas for my own). Very inspiring ladies and cool stuff as usual from Jessica but I can't wait to make the album this weekend! I'm hoping to be able to incorporate my Eve Johnson holiday album too. Guess I will find out soon enough. Last year Ali Edwards had a great Daily December album which my friend made (and made me jealous) so I had to hop on the bandwagon this year!

So enough of the cuteness and back to the values... the goals... I got nothing. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Every year I say I'm not going to stress out. Every year I say I'm going to spend quality time at home. Year after year I say I'm going to cut back on the spending. Be more organized. Go to church. Relax. Enjoy. Ugh. Seriously? I suck. Every stinking year. However, this year something is already different and it happened before I started this class, and this thought process. I had a ball shopping for Brayden... got the Thanksgiving, Santa visit, gnome photoshoot (I'll explain that more in a couple weeks), Christmas Eve and Christmas day outfit all set. And Christmas crafts... I've knitted two hats, started knitting two gifts, made vintage Santa gift tags for presents, working on holiday cupcake picks, two hybrid holiday albums and I am in my first Christmas ornament swap on swap-bot.com. My husband has been singing and playing holiday tunes since 11/1 and I'm actually not annoyed by it. I also head up a lot of the holiday functions at work and get frustrated... but nope, not this year. Twilight zone? Perhaps.

Again, my values and goals for the holidays... are the still the same. And I will probably fail at them. This year I will laugh when I do though. That's going to make the difference. I have realized that 2009 was a great personal journey for me. Ups and down. Insides and out. Hurt feelings. Changed feelings. Budgets. A ton (a TON) of friends struggling with the economy. With health. With life. Emotional. Motherhood... huge learning curve. And I've rediscovered quite a few things about myself. It may have been an extremely hard year, but I think in the distant future that I may look back and say it was a great year. A great year that taught me a lot.

In an atempt to not make this post a mile long... possibly too late for that... I'll wrap this up and say that have no specific holiday values or goals. I will see my family and friends and love them. I always value my husband (yes, even when I want to strangle him) and my son (the two furry boys with pointy ears too). I have a feeling I will relax this Christmas for the first time ever. And enjoy it. Lots of fun crafts, love to spread, et cetera, etc cetera. No bah humbugs out of me this year. I haven't mentioned Brayden much... he's two now so there will a ton of fun to share with him. Maybe that is what put the extra spunk in me this year?

Now back to the class real quick... the album will be grand! The class is fun. And it got me to thinking about 2009 as a whole. In its entirety. And now I am already looking forward to 2010. My only newyearsolution will be the same as always... be a better person. And thank you to everybody that inspires me... even though you have no idea who you are. Oh! That should be a blog post, eh? :o) I hope to blog all my crafts and album updates through December. We need some fun eye candy on here, don't ya think?

Thank you, and good night.