I don't know about the rest of you, but I am worn out.

I have been so preoccupied by our business (or as my former boss used to say "bid-ness"), by making sure that Santa brought EXACTLY the right thing ON TIME, by keeping up a facade of happy happy joy joy that I am just plain tuckered out.

All of this while slogging through a brutal post-Turkey Day period of blues.

I am not even sure what the hell is was wrong with me.

Thankfully, hopefully, the clouds have lifted and I will keep feeling better.

Be that as it may, things kept going.

There were Gingerbread Houses to decorate.

There was Grand Master H's Big Christmas Show.

I am not sure who was more anxious about it, me or him. I swear I was having nightmares and anxiety attacks for days ahead of time. I worried that he had practiced and wouldn't want to do it when the time came. Turns out I was right, but my little trooper did it anyway, despite being scared shitless and his father and I nearly died from the pride of it.

H and three little girls dressed in cowboy gear, dancing to a song about teaching Santa to ho ho ho.
Yup, that is enough to level me.

And, yes, he was that deadly serious through the entire number. He is a VERY serious thespian.

As it turns out, every time he gets too hungry, too tired or too frustrated, he brings up the fact that I "made him" be in the show and that he didn't want to do it, but I made him do it anyway.

None of which is true. I want to be clear, I in no way forced him. I told him he could back out if he wanted to and so did his teacher. Apparently, the fact that I left him backstage and went to sit in the audience meant that he was being forced, at the end of a gun, to sing and dance like a trained monkey.
He maintains he was too shy to speak up.

I have a feeling this is one for the therapist when he is an adult.

And then there was the obligatory photoshoot for the Christmas card.
It did not go well this year.