M. Silver's Journal: Post-Christmas not-so-blues.

In past years, I've always had some post-Christmas blues. Sort of, anyway. More like post-Christmas disgusts, actually, after family members spend absurd amounts of money on stuff we neither need nor want, leaving us with wads of guilt about what the heck to *do* with the stuff, plus the inevitable "we didn't spend enough on THEM" stuff, and so on.

This year, due to a combination of factors that led to our relatives not having time to buy so much crap (and therefore spending more money on one *decent* present, off a list of things we suggested), plus our endless complaining about not having any room in the house, we actually didn't have that happen. We got some quite nice gifts, we managed to buy stuff for relatives that *they* wanted rather than feeling like we had a quota, and we don't have a houseful of stuff to find homes for.

It's progress. Perhaps next year we'll persuade them that alternative gifting (heifer.org, and the like) really *would* make us just as happy as still more material possessions.

Meanwhile, my husband has the week off, and incentive to help with the basement (making room for the pottery wheel I bought him!) so hopefully we'll make some housecleaning progress. I also commissioned his brother to do some of the kitchen work that we now have even less time for, and he properly installed our stove while we were gone this weekend (the previous stove was a built-in, and this one's not, so it's been sitting an extra 3-4" up on the cabinet base for I-don't-know-how-long). Progress, hurrah.