Two weeks into December and the Christmas spirit hasn’t hit me yet.

While we usually don’t pick out our tree until close to the middle of the month, the rest of our house is often fully decorated before December 1. But there’s only one decoration out so far, and that’s only because our oldest asked for her Christmas tree a few weeks ago and it was in the same box.

December 1 is also when I usually aim to have the Christmas shopping done. But, up until two days ago, I had only bought one present. The stress of Christmas being less than two weeks away finally caught up with me and I did a flurry of online shopping. The shopping still isn’t done, but at least I know that there will be some presents under the tree this year (whenever we finally get our tree …. )

For at least the last ten years, I’ve done a photo picture for our Christmas cards featuring our pets and our kids. But, without any time to think about my theme, nevermind take the pictures, I opted not to do Christmas cards at all this year. And that makes me a little sad because it’s a wonderful snapshot into our family. I’ve pondered still doing one and just posting it on Facebook or Instagram for posterity, but I still have no theme!

If it wasn’t for my husband, our lights wouldn’t be up. Actually, that’s probably true of every year 😀

The title of the post was really a hint at my concerns that my lack of Christmas joy this year is ruining Christmas for our kids. I know that’s not really true, but who knows how many more years (if any) our oldest will still believe in Santa Claus and the magic of Christmas.

I did, at least, remember to have our Christmas gnomes (our version of Elf on a Shelf) “visit” this year. And I’ve been pretty good about moving them around each night. I even thought up a few new adventures for them this year. And I remembered to get the little chocolate advent calendars, although, picking them up on November 30 meant I didn’t have much of a choice of designs!

I hope that is enough.