Ramblings

I've noticed that I'm a rambler - like really seriously a bad rambler. It prevents me from doing things like posting a comment on popular blogs even. Why? you ask. Because as I reach the end of a blog and it asks a simple question - something that most people would take a sentence to answer.. maybe two sentences for some - I start pondering my answer and considering whether I should post my own comment.
Then I realize that if I wrote out my comment, it would take up more space than the entire blog entry I'd be replying to.  ... Somehow that just seems rude to me... and so I don't comment. (A side note: If someone reading this wishes to post a comment that's longer than this post, go right ahead. I will be thrilled, not insulted, I promise) This is a problem since I really do want to comment. I think I have a good response to the prompt at the end of the post... but how to shorten it?
I've always had a problem with shortening my writing. In college writing classes, while everyone else was asking the teacher how long the paper had to be, I was asking how long it could be. Very quickly the teachers always learned to assign papers in a specific manner. I even had one teacher who literally singled me out. It was a classroom joke really. She would assign a paper and look out at the class and say, "I want at least two pages from all of you" and then she'd turn to me and say, "And from you, I want no more than five pages." Then she'd jokingly complain about reading my last eight page novel that I'd submitted for the 3 page writing assignment the class before.
Yeah, I've always had a tendency to ramble.
Actually, now that I think about it... Lol.. I just realized that my boss at my current job has noticed too. Shortly after starting my current job, I learned that he likes anything I email him to be bulleted for easy reading. I probably rambled on in one too many emails to him... Whoops.

But anyway, the comment that I was going to make was to Stephanie Pearl-McFee's blog post about Christmas planning. She asked her readers if they were the "keepers" of their family's festivities at Christmas time and how they managed it. I started thinking about my response and before I knew it, I'd composed a short blog post in my mind. Hence the above ramblings... But am I the keeper of my family's festivities?

Meh, sort of. I've sort of always planned things - or tried to at least. I realized sometime in middle school that my friends never did anything as a group unless I planned it. So, I became the unofficial party organizer for my group of friends. I'd plan and plan and plan and then when it came time for the outing to happen... everything would screw up my plan and we'd end up winging it anyway. So, I got pretty used to that eventually and it's still mostly the case today as well.
I'm still the main planner among my friends - even though I'm way too lazy and okay with winging it to be a good planner. If I don't step up and plan something, then usually nothing happens. Take Christmas for instance: I plan our group's Christmas every year. I usually take my dear sweet time and sometimes we don't celebrate Christmas until February... but on those particular occasions... did anyone else step up and tell everyone: "Okay, we're having Christmas on X day, at X time, and we're doing X activities."? Nope.
I should give Sra some credit here. She's usually the one that prompts me into organizing the group parties/outings. Without her we'd probably not have Christmas until February every year. She's actually asked me about Christmas for this year already. I haven't planned anything yet for my friend's Christmas, but neither has anyone else, so I figure, it'll happen when it happens. To be honest, I don't think anyone else would be able to get everyone together like I can. Hell, who am I kidding? I can't even get everyone together anymore. It's hard enough getting mostly everyone together anymore. Okay, now I'm not talking about planning, I'm moping about missing people from my high school days and moping about my friends not getting along anymore, and that's just pathetic. :-(
So with a side note that I should start thinking about planning some sort of Christmas party for my friends.... Moving on:
Do I plan my family's Christmas activities? I sort of do. Between myself and Seth, I'm definitely the one that plans what we're doing when it comes to Christmas parties and the like. And technically, Christmas with Seth's family did move from Seth's dad's house to our house a couple years ago... But I wouldn't say I'm the only planner within that side of the family. Lol.. nope. Mary is most definitely another keeper of the family's festivities - heck, she tries to plan friend stuff too sometimes. She loves Christmas. And sure since we both do some planning, sometimes we butt heads and get nothing accomplished or decided. But other times, it works out pretty well. Christmas is still in its infancy in our family, I think. A lot of the old traditions from Seth's childhood are getting changed and we're slowly coming up with our own.
Within my side of the family... Christmas? There's still Christmas? I thought that ended when my brother and I moved out.. Hmmm.. I suppose maybe unknowingly I was a bit of a keeper of the festivities there too. I always encouraged my mom to have Christmas there even though she would always stress out and say she couldn't handle it. And since I moved out, she hasn't had Christmas at her house. And it's been a family tradition for generations to make our family Christmas cookies every year and I know for a fact that if I didn't force it down my mom and Aunt's throats every year we wouldn't still be making them. So, in a way, I guess I keep Christmas going a bit in my side of the family.
Really thinking about this makes me wonder if I should try to force Christmas activities on more of my loved ones... That sounds bad, but... I mean, when I was a kid, we used to gather with my dad's side of the family for Christmas every year, but somewhere down the line, that just stopped. And on my mom's side of the family, we used to have a big Christmas gathering at a local church where everyone got together and a couple years ago, it just stopped too. My mom had a large number of her relatives over to our house on Christmas Eve for the longest time too but that stopped eventually too. It's weird - and really sad actually - how so many family traditions just died. It does make me feel like I should start up some new family traditions to take their place.
But alas, I never do finish what I start, do I?


Wow... talk about morose. Ouch. I hate to end this post on such a sad note. It's got me feeling all sad now... :-(

Well, not exactly a positive addition to the conversation - okay, ramblings, not conversation - but I do have something to add.  I just remembered that it's hard enough to manage the few holiday things I do have going on without adding more and that is why it's really not as sad as you would think that all those old traditions have died. Afterall, if I add too many things to do, then how the heck am I supposed to cause the Apocalypse by getting all my knitting done?! Priorities!