Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012 - 7:04 a.m.

The in-laws arrived yesterday. I am still in a good frame of mind. Let's see how long that lasts. Will I get through this afternoon?

The cookies are helping.

All my desires for a homemade Xmas are for nought. For the most part, I bought. But I didn't really finish the shopping and shipping, and some of the things probably won't arrive in time, and and and. I feel bad for buying, and I feel bad for not buying enough.

Whatever. I give up.

Not in the way of complaining, merely an anthropological observation, but one of the things my BIL does with Q (he adores her, but doesn't have much experience with people her age) is reference different toys in her room-- whatever she's playing with usually-- and ask her/remind her who bought it for her. The whole thing feels kind of yucky to me.

I have some friends with young kids and not much money who are giving them things belonging to the parents that the kids haven't seen/played with yet. Costume jewelry from the depths of the jewelry box is the main thing. That's it. The kids if course will love it. At this point, Q would love it too as long as she got to unwrap it. I kind of envy that family. I crave that simplicity, and there's no way I'll ever get it. (As mentioned above, the problem is not entirely external. The drive to consume is great.)

Reading some on the Project Based Homeschooling blog about how you have to live the kind of life you want your kids to value. If you want them to value creativity and inquiry and self-motivated learning, you have to shape your physical space and habits to reflect that. In other words, live how you want to live. I'm not doing very good at that. Could be worse, but all our stuff in particular threatens to choke us. I shouldn't be so hard on myself, what with the small children and all, but still. I can't help but feel like other people manage better with fewer resources, what the hell is wrong with me?

Not really, but sort of.

Really should start thinking about some holiday traditions that I would like us to practice to offset/deemphasize the consumer aspects of the holiday. Tried to talk Q into giving one of her old baby toys to U for Xmas, but she wasn't having any of it. Stuff she never even played with but we still have, she now does not want U anywhere near. *sigh* Should have gotten rid of it long ago rather than imagine we were keeping it for the baby.

Anyhow. Discussions about givin/doing things for others do not seem to generate much interest in her. Gotta work on it.

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