Happy Holidays?

I don’t know about you, but from about the middle of November to the end of December my life turns into a tornado.  It ravages me, pulling me in 18 different directions towards events like basket ball practices and games, holiday programs, Christmas parties, and gift shopping.  Then it lashes me with ribbons and bows from cookie baking, present wrapping and tree decorating.  Thinking it is finally done, soon family dinners and desserts leaded with thousands of delicious calories are being lobbed in my direction.

How can I possibly make it to the New Year without my life being proclaimed as a state of emergency and overdosing on my grandpa’s homemade fudge recipe???  In my quest to find inner-happy-holiday-ness I’ve asked others for guidance.  My dad, in a moment of profoundness, advised me “Stay out of Walmart, Tova.”  “Hide your checkbook from your wife” was my brother’s advice, then retracted his statement (fearing his own wife might catch wind of his words) and said, “Stay at home.  Lock your doors.”  My sister Tyra, had a lengthy answer… “I suppress, ignore, and am, for the most part in denial.  I get my job done and set the holidays in a separate compartment in my brain.  I open the little compartment on Christmas day to express my joy. Six months later when I am still trying to pay off my debt from Christmas the little compartment is opened again so I can cry.”

I looked to my co-workers in my time of happy-holiday need.  I got answers like, “Ignore it.”, “Good planning.  Then panic.”, and “You know how I make it through the holiday season, Tova…you saw me at the Christmas party.”  Well, Awesome!!!  This is shaping up to be a joyous blog filled with sage advice!

If anything, what you can take from this is we all have our ways to get us through the holidays while still finding joy in the season.  I take all of these pieces of wisdom and apply them to my own life in moderation.  My advice to you?  Hang in there!  Crazy schedules and to-do lists make you feel like a rubber band getting stretched and pulled.  Take the rubber band, tie your hair up, and go for a walk.  Come up with a plan to get you through the rest of the day or week.  No one can do everything!!!  So do what you can and do it the best that you can!!!

Making holiday programs is a struggle for me.  To do this, I have to hone in on my skills in the fine art of bribery.  One of my co-workers consented to a shift change when I offered up some brownies I had made out of my Cooking Light magazine.  Before agreeing, he confirmed there would be no bark or cardboard substituted for ingredients and the brownies would taste like brownies…as opposed to…bark or cardboard.  With enough convincing I was set.  The next day the brownies were delivered.  Much to ALL of my co-workers surprise, the brownies were delicious. 

Should you need to resort to bribery in order to be creative with your schedule, I’ve included the link to the easy bark-less brownies my co-workers enjoy!

Fudgy Brownies from Cooking Light
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000002012802