Surviving the Holidays, Part 1

I don't know if I'm going to survive this holiday season.

Normally at this time I'm freaking out because I have too much to do. I am a bit set in my holiday ways:

1. The Pajamas

Every year I make pajama bottoms for my boys. All four of them. This is one thing I do 'right' as a wife and mother. There aren't a lot of things that I think I'm amazing at in this world, but sewing pajama bottoms is quite high on the short list. My guys agree with me, frankly. In fact, other people who don't necessarily have a lot of really swell things about me, will tell you that my homemade flannel pj bottoms rock pretty darn hard.

I originally called them boxers but the pattern I use has no fly and sometimes I make them long for the kids and I usually make them long for women, so they're not necessarily boxers. The year that Sweet But Sneaky was born I made full blown pajamas, tops and bottoms, for DaddyDoc and Mr. Genius, a onesie for SBS, and a nightshirt for myself. NEVER AGAIN. First of all, shirts are not nearly as fun to make. Second, it is a pain in the tush to find that much matching fabric. And lastly, that much fabric just isn't cheap. T-shirts are delightful accessories to homemade pajama bottoms. De-light-ful.

I get very funny about my pajama bottoms, too. I have to carefully select the fabrics for the person who will be wearing them. For my kids and husband, that's pretty easy. For others it can be a bit of a challenge. One year I made Grandpa Rocket Scientist some and I have to confess that he's an easy one: Find something celestial. It can be rocket ships, stars, space theme, whatever. That works. Auntie Doc is fun, too. She loves felines. Feline flannel is fortunately facile. (Thank you, Google, you are such a good friend to me.) For a relative who loved to camp, I found a camping theme, the guy who golfs got golfing boxers and so on and so on.

Every year Daddy Doc and the kids get matching Christmas PJ bottoms. Some years I buy the fabric in the summer just to get it when there's a good selection and so that I know the store will have enough on the bolts to fill my needs. In past years, I've made several additional pairs for the kids so they have enough to get through the year. For a few years, I put elastic in the hems of the little boys pants so that I could make them extra-long. With that strategy, in theory, the boys would not outgrow them as quickly. Last year I made them shorts instead of long pants because it's a much easier strategy and makes more sense when they're wearing their Christmas pajamas in the middle of the summer. 

Historically, if I don't have the pajama bottoms finished by Thanksgiving (which I rarely do,) I'm panicking. This year, I'm only making four pairs so I'm not panicking quite yet but I'm worried that I should be panicking and wondering if perhaps I'm not anxious enough.

2- The Decorations.

I have huge issues about my house right now so we're not going to go there. 

3- The Confections

There are just so many things I would love to be able to do to my house. I need furniture. The Ikea couch and Costco dining table were fine when I was married in the previous CENTURY, but they so need to go. As do my stained carpet and scratched up and warped wood floors. And the broken kitchen tile and the bi-level peninsula that would be so much better if it were one-level. And the living room walls are so gross with the cheap white paint that was gross 12 years ago when it was new. 

But.

Do you know what my deepest darkest most inner desire is for my entire house?

More than the termite treatment in the living room and fixing the roof on the upper gable?

I secretly pray that my oven will break. 

There's nothing really wrong with my oven. It works just fine. It holds its heat just fine. The timer works. It is self-cleaning. It's a fine and dandy oven for the most part. But there's only one. 

Oh can you imagine the glory of a double oven?!? My holiday culinary exploits would take off! I could bake two kinds of cookies at one time at different temperatures! Or I could bake an entire recipe of cookies in one sitting! It would be so easy to do! I just have to take out the microwave above my current oven, and the drawer below it, and a double oven would slide perfectly into the space. I'm sure of it! It would have to be that easy because I wish it to be so. 

(Yes, I know that the reality is that it would finally break and I'd go to the store and find out that the space is something like 1" too small for my dream oven but let's not crush the dream quite yet, shall we?)

Along with the pj bottoms, another item on my very short list of amazing wifely and motherly talents is my confection making. I can't call it baking anymore because I have branched out to candy making, also, but confections cover baked goods and candies so it's all good. And at this time of year, I kick it up a serious notch.

I posted that poll earlier looking for confection making input. Since that time, I am very, very happy to report that my mother located that date bar recipe from my late grandmother! Several years ago, my aunts submitted several family treasure recipes to one of those Church Lady Fundraising Cookbooks. Somehow my mother acquired a copy of that cookbook and while she was looking for a different recipe a few weeks ago, she literally stumbled upon the date bar recipe. Yeah! Thank you for looking out for me, Grammy!

Holiday confection making would be so much more better with a double oven. Yes, it would.

But these things are not the things that will drive me insane this year. Nope. Trying to get my house picked up will come very, very close, I admit that. But juggling the busy-ness of school plus scouts plus holiday plus baking and sewing will not be what does me in. Nope.

What may finally get me committed comes down to a quest and three little letters:

W.I.I.

I have to stop typing for now. I'll be back with more later. Maybe.