Ok, at the risk of sounding Grinchlike, here are just a few of my holiday pet peeves:
1. Holiday e-cards. You know what I'm talking about. Rather than taking the time to buy a card and mail it, you simply send a card via email to a mass list. This drives me insane. The only part that makes it worse is when you insist you're doing it because you want to save some trees. Please. This is the one time of year (apart from birthdays) where it's actually fun to get mail. Don't ruin that. Please?
2. No thank you notes. I know, my insanity over thank you notes has been well documented. But seriously. If someone took the time to send you a gift, take the time to thank them for it. It will be appreciated. Trust me. And not via email, okay? Or even worse, on Facebook.
3. There are no words for how much I hate Toys R Us. Unfortunately it is a necessary evil in my life. But there is nothing more distasteful than being there this time of year, when people are grabbing crap off the shelves like they're a contestant in Supermarket Sweep. Not to get all Charlie Brown on you or anything, but the mass consumerism of the holiday season drives me nuts. Maybe I say that as a person who's children have more plastic crap that they never play with than there are people in certain nations. I just always end up leaving there feeling sad and depressed and like I need to do massive amounts of community service for underprivileged children. Immediately.
4. Gifts requiring assembly. Inevitably my husband and I have to do this on Christmas Eve, once the kids have gone to bed. It's always a disaster. The ONLY time my husband and I ever fight is when we're assembling bikes (or furniture from Ikea).
4. The post office. Enough said.
Thankfully there is more than enough good to outweigh the small annoyances. Time with the people I love most of all. The smell of cookies baking. Christmas carols (my personal favorite: O Holy Night). Our own family traditions that we keep to every year. And my children's faces when they discover Santa really did bring them what they asked for.
Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday season, full of love and laughter. :)
