Well, hello there. It's me. I am back. I was walking along today doing my usual Wednesday Target run when I suddenly remembered, "Oh yeah, I have a blog. I should really visit it, maybe make a post sometime." So here I am.
It has been a busy couple of months since I last posted what with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. It is amazing how much we run our lives around holidays, isn't it? We barely get through one and immediately feel obligated to tackle the next one. Just today at Target I felt compelled to purchase two little heart-shaped tins with a cute saying on them from the Dollar Spot so I can make candy for my kids' teachers for Valentine's Day. Gotta get ready, it will be here before you know it! I know all people aren't like this. Some people acknowledge the holidays with a simple nod and wave from afar rather than this more full on body-slam approach. But in this age of Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc the pressure to perform for the holidays is HIGH! (unless you don't have children, in which case I guess you get to sit back, relax and enjoy the show.) When did it get this way? When I was a child lo those many years ago the holidays were fun and exciting but not all encompassing of your life outside of the actual day of the holiday. Take Christmas for example. Christmas was a highly celebrated holiday in my family and I looked forward to it each year with all of the eagerness and zeal of Ralpie wishing and hoping for his Red Rider BB gun. But I don't recall my parents spending hours crafting marshmallow snowmen with me or trying to recreate the Nativity out of chow mein and frosting. If there were parties at school, which I only vaguely remember, that meant that someone's mom brought in regular old sugar cookies and maybe some juice. If you were really lucky they passed out candy canes, one per kid. Not 25 seam-busting treat bags. It was a simple affair. Nothing Pinterest-worthy. But fast-forward to today and it is like we are jumping through hoops to please and entertain our children at all costs. Why? Is it that we Gen X'ers (and Y's) felt deprived in some way as children and are overcompensating for it now? Is it that we have become so privileged with all that we have we need to create new challenges to our 'existence'? Or perhaps the fact that technology allows us to share our exploits with anyone at any time has created a sort of "grass is greener" envy that we feel compelled to compete with? I'm not sure how it started, but at some point I think it needs to, well, not stop, but slow down to a more reasonable and manageable level. Seriously. I mean, how many arts and crafts do we need to do with our food before we remember to just thank God and eat it?
It will change one day, I am sure. But until then I guess I will allow myself to be moderately sucked in. I have a great idea for a leprechaun trap made entirely out of Lucky Charms. ;)
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