While many females seem to be in various stages of holiday coma I am in the studio, listening to classical music and designing. By not leaving the house today I have become even more insulated from the hurriedness of the season.
Several decades ago I unplugged the Christmas machine and began to create my ideal holiday which shockingly did not include baking 200 iced snowmen and gingerbread or going to the woods to cut a live tree, hauling it home, decorating it for hours and spending the rest of its natural life either watering it or trying to keep the domestic animals out of it; then fast forward 2 weeks to the undressing of the tree, putting all the ornaments away and hauling the dying tree out of the house, getting sap all over and vacuuming needles until kingdom come. Or making stops at every boutique in the county to find just the perfect trinket to decorate the shelf in the guest bath. Or the buying of stuff that no one needs or likely wants just for the sake of having something to gift them. Or the countless parties with eggnog, sugar, glogg, bourbon balls, toffee, coffee, gingerbread people, See’s candy and more eggnog and oy why do I feel so awful?
And it IS women’s work! When was the last time you heard a guy utter how stressed he was about the holidays? My choosing to do minimal decoration and celebrate family is the secret to why I have time to make art on the winter solstice. OMG only 4 more shopping days!
So back to the studio where I have been laboring for a couple weeks now on an abstract landscape…actually two identical landscapes but in different seasons. I spent nearly a week fighting with the oak trees in the background. My in-house art critic reported that the trees were the wrong size and not in proportion with the foreground. After I threw him out of the studio, I removed all the trees, cut them smaller and re-pinned 100 oak trees in the background. They still looked too big to me so I called in the live-in art critic and asked and he agreed they were still too big. So I cut them down again, only this time I cut the previous trees into quarters. So what if the edges were not round? It’s art! In pops uninvited the art critic and says the trees don’t work. Grrr!
At that point I am so hating this work anyway and why did I start this dumb thing and where’s a can of red paint when you need it yada, yada, yada?! Off came every single tree as calm spread throughout the studio. As my friend Jenny Lyon says …a forehead slapping moment! I decided to stitch the oak trees instead… Duh.
I spent most of today building fences. They are now perfection and tomorrow when there are just 3 shopping days…gasp! I will proceed onward with a renewed sense of adventure.
Happy New Year Carol! Love what you wrote and how you wrote about “unplugging the Christmas machine.” I unplugged a while ago, and this was one of the most peaceful Christmases I have experienced.
Oh, my! I just read this post. I am so with you on the Christmas thing, just not for quite as long you. I hopped off the machine a few years ago. And, yes, I did it *all* and it was up to me to make the holiday happy. I can’t imagine dedicating an entire month to one holiday like so many I know.
yes Martha it is sad that so many still see the need to please others and do it all. when i figured out i was doing all the work, it stopped!