Good Will toward only a Reasonable Amount of People

I've discovered something new.  Its a freakin' Christmas miracle.

This is the first year that I have not done Christmas cards.  If you're normally on my list and didn't get a card, don't feel bad.  No one on the list is getting a card this year, and its - dare I say it? - LIBERATING.  I am waiting to get arrested and for the earth to stop spinning on its axis, but so far the only place the world is ending is the Mayan calendar.

But that's not the miracle.  Every year, I make candy and cookies and all this crap and I put it in pretty bags with pretty ribbon and I make little handmade tags and I hand these creations out to neighbors and the postal carrier and the dog groomer and the piano teacher and anyone else I need a little gifty for.  Well, not this year.  You know what?  The piano teacher got cash.  The dog groomer?  Cash.  And I bet that's what the garbage man is gonna get, too.

Cash, people!  So simple!  I have always tried to be thoughtful and personal and save a little money on gifts.  But you know what?  I have paid!  With my sanity!  And how many of those thoughtful, home-made gifts ended up in the trash?  Probably lots of them!  (I will say, though, that if those peanut butter pretzel balls covered with chocolate got thrown out, that is just a crime.  I want to eat my way out of a ball pit filled with those things.)

All the cards and the candy and packaging and mailing has started my Christmas seasons off in a grim way, and I scarcely recover by the time Christmas has rolled around because I also have to shop for actual gifts, and wrap them, and mail some, and bake cookies with Leila etc. etc. 

Its a revelation!  Who knew that doing less for fewer people over the holidays was the secret to a merry Christmas? 

P.S.  Chicken Korma?  Fantastic!