Oh joy, the holidays

Ah! It's that time of the year again. As much as I would love to say the holidays are my favorite time of the year (and in some ways it can be) lets be honest, the holidays bring on a whole new level of stress that we get to avoid the rest of the year. I really need to break down the positives and negatives.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. My biggest complaint is the financial strain the holidays bring. Halloween costumes, pumpkin patches, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas gifts, Christmas cards, Christmas related events. All these are added expenses that just don't exist the other 9 months of the year. I grew up with a single dad and 2 brothers and 2 sisters so needless to say, we didn't have a lot of money. We were what you would call POOR. Being poor growing up my dad taught me the difference between a want and a need. It's hard for me to spend a ton of money on things I don't really need, but on the other hand I want my boys to experience things I never got to, which brings me to the next bad point about the holidays; stress. The stress of cooking large meals and playing hostess (something I've never mastered) brings on a whole other batch of problems that I also don't have to deal with the rest of the year. One day when I'm a millionaire (come on lotto!) I'm going to hire planners to take care of all the stressful planning, maids to do the stressful cooking and personal shoppers to spend the money for me. Yup, when I'm a millionaire.....

So now that I'm done being Debbie Downer, I have a ton to look forward to this year. Last year since it was our first year in TX, we spent the holidays alone. My husbands mom was with us for x-mas, but she comes with her own slew of stresses that I just don't have time to get into. This year my sister and my brother are local so we'll be doing all the events with them, and my BB (bottom b****, more on that term later) will be here with her family for Thanksgiving (I need a solo blog post just to express my excitement about this!) and my dad will be flying from CA for Christmas. This move was really tough for me, so knowing that family is coming and going to be around thrills me to no end. It's very important to me that my boys keep familiar with family and feel the love on such important events.

So with Halloween approaching, this holiday season is about to get started and I'm actually kinda looking forward to all the stresses and financial woes its going to bring!! Well kinda......