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Twelve Days ’til Christmas and Mr. and Mrs. Claus Stopped Whining

Shelley

An email that stood out popped into my inbox yesterday. Leave it to good ol’ Seth Godin to come to my rescue and put my oh-so-naughty, slightly negative perspective back on a more positive track.

His post is about Whining (you can read it here if you’d like). The gist of it is that it’s best to avoid whining because whiners are always disappointing.

. . . When whining becomes a habit, we need to continue it, so we begin to interpret events as opportunities to prove that our whining is justified. – Seth Godin

Yikes. So there – I’m done whining for awhile. And I’m done wasting my time, and yours on my pandemic woes-me moments, unless it’s a funny one.

Like the mouse I attempted to create for one of my grand-kitties. Just look at that thing… no eyes, and oddly shaped. At least I’ve gotten both of our cats to bat at it a couple of times. It may eventually grow on one of them for a playmate.

I’m definitely rusty at my creative endeavors this year. I need to go back to the drawing board for the mice. My grand-kitties won’t notice I’m not sending them anything this year. There’s always Valentine’s Day, I’ll send them some love then.

I did accomplish another crafty project. Gifts for my daughters, the two angels who are staying away from us for the holidays to be responsible.

This was a gift, not made by Me!

I don’t want to reveal too much about the gift I am making, in case one of our girls stumbles upon this post before they get the gift. I successfully talked Mr. into helping me so I didn’t burn my fingers on the hot glue gun.

Mr. can be so creative when he rescues me from my struggles to complete projects. He’s ready to help me by creating things with his 3-D printer. He printed templates for my project above and before that some cute prototypes of animals for our cork-ladened Wine Arc. Not only are there four adorable wine cork buddies – a reindeer, 2 snow bunnies, and and orange pig,

… there’s more – a fish and a gray pig! I smile at this mini-collection of them every time I wash dishes.

So yeah, Mr. and I are ready to sit here alone this Christmas. Who knew over 20 years ago, it’d be us sitting here admiring our tiny tree without the stress of scrambling to get more done with 12 days to go.

By day,

Or by night, with the glow of the fairy lights on the tree that sparkles against the tinsel that’s well over 40 years old – our Christmas spirit is warming up to being as okay as we can be this not-so-normal year.

As I wandered around looking at my placement of the decorations, I glanced at the photo tucked in the corner and thought to myself, “Aw…sigh, I guess next year we’ll get another family photo taken.”

Me: Will you help me figure out how to set up my camera on the tripod so we can get a photo of the two of us together? I’m thinking about maybe sending out some cards?

Mr: I’m sure we can do that, will you cut my hair first?

Me: Yeah, I can schedule you in. It’s a date for tomorrow and photos by 3!

Stay tuned for more…from Mr. and Me on how that all goes.

I hope our selfie session isn’t a big ol’ blurr!

Until then, I leave you with a photo of my maximum use of space for my mini-snowman collection. Some are hand-made by me, some by my kids, some were gifts, and some were in my mom’s collection. All represent the love we’ve shared as we’ve gathered together over the holidays.

Post inspiration – Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday – mini/max. Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “mini/maxi.” Use “mini” (the smallest of something) or “maxi” (the largest) or both in your post. Have fun!

PS – I hope your Hanukkah/Christmas festivities and preparations are going well. I smile when I think of all of you, thank you so much for making my season bright! xx

Published by Shelley

Letting my quirk out one post at a time.

32 thoughts on “Twelve Days ’til Christmas and Mr. and Mrs. Claus Stopped Whining”

    1. Yes, it is nice to have Mr. here to celebrate with. I’m darn lucky he’s not bored with seeing me everyday. We both work from home so we have to ‘work’ at breaking out of ‘normal’ routine.
      I hope you and your family get together virtually. I can only imagine how hard it is to be alone when you’d rather be with family. xx

  4. I’m falling in love with snowmen this year. They are so cute. I am happy to hear that some spirit is coming back. We will have the kids, but only because they live here already – LOL.

    1. Yes, they are. I love how a snowman can be created in so many different ways and still look like a snowman that people recognize.
      I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your kids. Hopefully they’ll do all the work so you can rest! PS – Your snowmen gift card holders are so adorable. https://www.etsy.com/shop/ASmile4UfromJanet

  6. Good luck with your selfie session. Love the festive pics. And you’ve inspired me to try and put my whining on hold. There’s still so much to celebrate, even this year. Thanks for your positivity, Shelley!

    1. Thank you, Rebecca. I’m done whining, but doesn’t mean I’m done complaining. LOL! There is much to celebrate and I hope you and your family are enjoying the holidays. And special treats with that plate of cookies – YUM. Thank you for your support and encouragement, you sharing your thoughts is a very special gift to me. Thank you!

    1. You’re welcome, thanks for stopping by. I wish I had a tree crashing story to give you a good laugh, but our cats are only offering up a puking moment here and there. The tree is still standing!

        1. LOL – today’s de-decorating day, they just couldn’t pull the tree crashing off this year. Maybe next year will be better?

  8. I love your little wine cork buddies, Shelley. So cute! As for the mouse, if you fill it with catnip, the grand kitties won’t care what it looks like. Gibbs doesn’t care that his catnip banana and eight-ball do not look at all like a mouse or bird.

    I’ve been pretty good at not whining. I’m content to stay home this Christmas and be grateful for good health and what I have. We’ll see family and friends next year, which I think will be super special for all of us. Have a wonderful holiday, Shelley, and let’s hope for a much better 2021. It has to be, right?

    1. Thanks, Mary. The wine cork buddies make me smile. I gave up on the mouse creating – it’s still in prototype mode and the test cats seem to ignore it. I do think that catnip may have helped. My grandkitties will have to do without for Christmas, hopefully by Valentines I have better ones made.
      You’re always so positive, Mary, I appreciate that about you. I hope you’re right about 2021 being the year we get back together again. I hope you have a wonderful holiday too, your mom’s tree looks so beautiful. I’m sure she’d be smiling.

    1. Thank you, Janis. The zoo keeps growing, I think that means I’ve saved too many corks?! Yeah, Seth is a good guy.
      As soon as my daughters actually get their gifts I’ll be able to share what they were. Postal service is slow this year. I hope they like them, it was fun to do something handmade for them.

  11. Your projects look like a lot of fun. A 3D printer sounds very cool too. Handcrafted gifts are so filled with extra love – nice work 🙂

    1. Thank you, we had fun making the gifts. The 3D printer is a mystery to me, but it has come in handy. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the girls like them. 🙂

  12. How in the world did you find time to make homemade gifts with all the hard work you’ve done this year? I guess you are done now but I thought you’d take a breather, but nope. Thanks for giving us a little Christmas cheer Shelley.

    1. I found time because I didn’t imagine how much time it really was going to take. LOL.
      Yes, all done now – just waiting for the packages to actually get to their destination.
      You’re welcome for the dose of Christmas cheer. xx

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