christmas

Christmas is my favorite holiday. The time of year is fantastic because it's typically all nice and cold outside and I kind of like it when it's gray for awhile. People are a tiny bit friendlier to each other (outside of duking it out over last minute Christmas presents at the mall) and there's lights everywhere! I heart stars and twinkle lights are like stars exploded everywhere. It just makes me happy. I wish windows and trees could be outlined in lights every day and not just for a month or so every year.

I really love getting stuff for people. I haven't really done this in the past few years because I barely have enough money to get all the bills paid and whatnot, but just know that I seriously love giving people really good gifts. Or nice surprises. I have kind of lost touch with this side of myself over the past couple of years and it's something I am looking forward to attempting to regain. Not so much the money as the actually just doing nice things for people. I need to come out from the little cave I've carved for myself.

Well, Ki and I are broke. I'd like to take a moment to say it really bugs me when someone says they don't have any money and then goes out shopping or eats out at a really nice restaurant. I realize it's none of my business and I don't know if maybe it was a gift or some other circumstances. But for the record, when I say I don't have any money I have less than $50 in my bank account and probably need two or three times that to pay bills and buy groceries.

My parents are paying our December bills as our Christmas present. We aren't doing a gift exchange at all with Ki's family this year. I told my sister to not get us a present because we can't afford to reciprocate. My local friends are not flush with funds either so we mutually agreed to skip presents this year and my not local friends and I don't really send presents. Except T, she is constantly mailing me stuff she thinks will brighten my day in some way or another but it rarely has anything do with a particular holiday or anything. Ki and I also decided to not do presents for each other this year. We're going to go out and do something special in January maybe. We'll see.

I'm not upset about not receiving presents. I feel awful about not being able to get anything for anyone though.

I saw a psychiatrist a month or so ago. My OB suggested I find someone to touch base with now in case things get worse for me mentally in a few months or I experience post partum depression because that way I wouldn't have to give the whole background story when I desperately needed intervention. It was an okay visit and the biggest piece of advice I took away from it was to think of things that I used to do before I got pregnant that made me happy. Or just made me not sad. I've been able to incorporate a few of them back into my day to day life, like reading books and writing more.

But when I think to myself "Who is Melissa?", that element of giving and doing nice things for people really used to be at my very core. That's what I was known for and I liked it because it was genuinely great to me to be able to make someone else smile. It's just an extra big bummer that I am not in a position to try to bring that back to life right now in the height of the giving season. It's not just the money. It's time and energy too.

I should definitely be packing right now and not typing and the real reason I'm avoiding it is because it makes me so darn tired. Baby C is wiggling and doing flips and roundhouse kicks the whole time I'm trying to decide if we really need to take all of our DVDs to my parent's house or not. All that physical activity burns my own energy out even though it's not really me doing all that moving.

I better knock out a couple of boxes at least before Ki gets home.