Countdown to Christmas: Part 2

Welcome to the second installment in Jo's Christmas preparations!

Right now, I imagine that Christmas is not the first thing on the minds of my dear friends in the States. For your sakes, this is a low-key week of preparations. I know that you have Thanksgiving coming up, and hope that you can all enjoy the reminder to feel thankful without feeling unhappy or stressed by the occasion.

I have to confess that I'm not feeling particularly festive, and really don't feel like making preparations. I have lots of appointments this week, but I am going to push myself to get at least a few things done, otherwise I know that I'll struggle nearer the time. Murphy's law dictates that I will end up in hospital during the whole of my last minute preparation time if I leave things too late. Actually, I'll probably be in hospital anyway (gotta love hospital wi-fi and online shopping!) but at least it's one thing off my mind if I'm up to date with my Christmas preparations.

I spent three weeks out of the four leading up to my wedding in hospital, which would have been somewhat stressful if we hadn't got most of the organising done months in advance, so I'm a big advocate for forward-planning. Those of us with chronic illness have to make the most of our good days so that we can focus on nothing but taking care of ourselves when we have bad days.

So what am I doing this week?

1. Ordering gifts online: There are some good deals around at the moment (I got 25% off most of the presents I ordered on Friday), especially with Black Friday coming up. Amazon are promoting their Black Friday deals, some of which look very good. I'm trying to consolidate all my orders so that I get all my Amazon gifts (and gifts from other websites) ordered at the same time, rather than having to go back and forth to the same sites with repeat orders. This is where the list that I made last week is particularly handy!

2. Making sauces, jams and chutneys: Cranberry sauce will freeze nicely until we're ready to use it. Jams are designed to be stored, and chutneys are considerably better if they have a few weeks to mature and develop their flavours. This year I plan to make a spiced apple chutney (it's an old favourite that I make every year, and never seem to be able to make enough to satisfy everyone!), sparkly plum jam (with edible glitter), cranberry sauce, and some sort of cranberry and apple jelly. The apples for the chutney are already cooked and stored in the freezer, so the chutney preparation will be low-effort - just adding the flavours.

3. Still plodding away at the Christmas cards: Helen (over at the Creaky Girl blog) suggested mail-merging addresses to print out onto sticky labels for the cards. I am definitely going to do this! The strength in my hands isn't great, and I get a lot of pain and illegible handwriting after a short time, so it seems sensible to conserve my hand function for the message, rather than wasting it writing names and addresses onto envelopes. As Helen rightly pointed out, it's quite a lot of effort initially, but I will be able to use the list again and again. Wish I'd done that for our wedding invitations and thank you cards!

4. Wrapping presents: We have a theme every year. This year it's brown paper with brightly-coloured ribbon and the names of the recipients stamped onto the paper. I haven't decided whether I'm going to emboss the names or not. I'll see how much my wrists hurt after wrapping. Thank goodness for sellotape dispensers! I have different boxes for the wrapped presents, depending on where they're going - thankfully this year we only have two stops on our Christmas tour, but in previous years we've had four or five stops, with a corresponding number of boxes. Once the boxes are filled, they're ready to sit until we leave for our Christmas tour, when they can be lifted straight into the boot of the car. Easy!

Wrapping paper theme for Christmas 2011 - brown paper and ribbon

5. Choosing (and ordering online) the wine for Christmas Day: We are spending Christmas with Richard's family up in the North West this year. We've been told that we don't need to help with the meal, as we'll be doing a lot of traveling, but Richard will make his traditional chocolate roulade and I'll bring chutneys and jams, which is a good tactical move, as I want to contribute something, but probably won't be much more use than a bump on a log after all the traveling! We've also offered to choose and bring the wine for Christmas Day. It's fun to choose wine to go with each course, with sherry to start and port to finish. We put money aside each month during the year as a 'wine fund', so this isn't an extra Christmas expense, thankfully.

6. Starting to buy and wrap the presents for Richard's stocking: We make stockings for each other every year, and they follow very specific rules:

• Chocolate coins and an orange (Richard has a chocolate orange because he doesn't like real ones!)
• Something to eat
• Something to read
• Something pretty
• Something useful
• Something to wear
• Something to listen to
• Something to play with

And that's all for this week. I'm desperate to start making the Christmas playlist for my iPhone, but I'm holding off for as long as possible. I make the same mistake every year, starting the Christmas music too early and then finding myself utterly jaded and sick of it by mid-December. But not this year - this year will be the year that I break that trend!

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J

Stir Up Sunday

Today is traditonally known as 'Stir Up Sunday' - the day on which we make our Christmas pudding. Everyone in the family stirs the pudding and makes a wish. It's a nice tradition and makes the house smell amazing!

As soon as the cat stops sitting on my recipe book (she likes to sit on whatever object she thinks is most likely to get the attention that she thinks should be given to her) I'm going to go and dig out dried fruit, oranges, brandy and spices, along with a few less interesting ingredients, and start to think about my wish. Since I don't believe in supernaturally-granted wishes, my wishes are usually more like resolutions; things that I want to achieve for myself and my family.

This year, my wishes are about taking care of myself. Crystal from Living with Gastroparesis has recently been discussing the idea of living with a chronic illness being a full-time job. I've been quite struck by this thought and have been trying to approach my medical care in the same way that I would approach a job; planning and preparing and making sure that things get done on time and as well as possible. I used to approach it in a slightly haphazard (and resentful) way, wishing that I could just be 'normal' some of the time. I know that's an unhelpful way to think about my medical care, and that I deserve the very best care I can give myself. I'll write more next week about the changes I'm making - lots of lists and systems!

Back to the present, and the baking plans: I have a very cute apron that I usually forget to wear (thankfully I'm not a messy baker, except when I use icing/confectioner's sugar), but I'm going to wear it today. Baking in my beautiful rainbow-coloured kitchen makes me so happy!

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J

Countdown to Christmas: Part 1

With less than six weeks to go until Christmas now is the time to start preparations.

I'm not suggesting that you play Christmas music on repeat from now until the end of December, or that it's the right time to start wearing those glitterball earrings, or even that you have to pretend to feel festive, but a few moments of planning this week will save much pain in the long run!

For those of us with chronic illnesses, holidays can be difficult. There may be long days of socialising, late nights, lots of travelling and unsuitable food. It may be difficult to find time to rest, take medications on schedule, exercise or meditate. In addition to this, there are the usual stressors of buying and wrapping gifts, sticking to a budget (which may be especially tight for those unable to work due to illness) and preparing to be the Hostess with the Mostest.

Things I am doing this week:

1. Making lots of lists: I have a list of presents that I need to buy for people (this will help me to stick to my budget, as I can look out for things on sale or special offer without panicking that I'm running out of time); a Christmas card list; lists of things that my husband and I would like so that I can tell people who ask for gift idea (we both have allergies, so it's often safer to give people specific suggestions). I also have a list of events so that I can start to think about travel arrangements and make sure that I don't kill myself by agreeing to go to ten parties in one week.

2. Arranging appointments: Now is a good time to deal with any little nagging health problems before the holidays hit. The last thing I want is to allow a small problem to develop into a big problem that could spoil my enjoyment of the holiday. It's also a good time to book a dental check-up and hair styling appointments before the party season starts in earnest.

3. Trying out holiday recipes: There are lots of things that I can't eat, but rather than be a miseryguts about it, I plan to try out some seasonal recipes that will suit my dietary requirements and appeal to everyone else. Crystal at Living (Well!) with Gastroparesis has some great recipes, hints and tips about handling the holidays without causing major symptom flares, and I plan to try some of her recipes this year. I definitely want to give them a trial run before the holidays so that I can avoid the stress of cooking something for the first time, not knowing if I'm going to enjoy it or if my body will tolerate it.

4. I've already bought wrapping paper and cards (I saved a lot of money because I bought them early), so I can start to write Christmas cards and wrap presents as I buy them. I can't write for very long at any one time, so if I write a few cards every day, I won't cause myself lots of pain by trying to write them all at the beginning of December (or lots of guilt that I didn't manage to send them out early enough)! 

I think that's quite enough holiday preparation for this week. There's no point in exhausting myself now while trying to avoid exhausting myself later. Check back next week for more planning and preparation!


This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J