I love Christmas. I just wish I had time for it.

Back in July, when this year’s first assortment of Hallmark ornaments hit the stores, I had a plan in mind, a yuletide tasking strategy; and it seemed doable.   I love Christmas, and yet these last four years I haven’t found time to decorate.  Collecting Christmas ornaments and indoor decorations has been my hobby for over two decades; but lately by the time December has rolled around the only seasonal thing I’d have accomplished was mailing my Christmas cards. 

But this year I was determined to make at least one room in my house look festive again.  The plan was to bring the three Christmas trees out of the attic the day after Halloween.  That way I’d have plenty of time to splay all those dozens of artificial branches and hang the lights and beaded garland.  I could do it before and after work and on the weekend while listening to the television or podcasts.  I saw that taking a week.

That would leave at least two weeks—a full fourteen days—to unpack all those green and red Rubbermaid totes.  Unwrap the ornaments from Christmases past from their tissue paper and bubble wrap cocoons.  Then empty this year’s ornament purchases from department store and gift shop sacks and boxes before then going to the Hallmark store and getting those ornaments out of layaway.

And I’d have plenty of level, horizontal surfaces set up for my ever-growing collection of Christmas ornaments and not be left finding room on the sofa and chair cushions and the ottoman or the entertainment center as I had before.  Not this guy.

All those painting and patching home improvement projects I was in the middle of would all be completed by October.  Yesiree.  By December 1^st I would be admiring my tree decorating handiwork before sitting down and watching my Mystery Science Theatre 3000 DVD of “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”

And how did that work out?  Well, let’s just say I was a few weeks off.  I did get the Christmas trees out of the attic, but it was the day before Thanksgiving.  And that was right after having finally finished the last of those home improvement projects.

For weeks all the pieces of my Christmas holiday have been sitting downstairs, and still at the “some assembly required” phase.  The trees are up, though bare.  My living room is crowded with tables set with over 940 tree ornaments (Yes, I counted.).  That ninety-nine dollar lighted gumdrop snowman I just had to buy five weeks ago?  I haven’t even taken it out of the box.  I still have three stacks of unopened storage totes full of lights and tabletop snowpeople and angels and wall hangings.  I didn’t even start mailing my Christmas cards until last week, and I’ve never been that late.

While others are procrastinating gift shoppers, I worry I may becoming a procrastinating tree decorator.  And I also worry because this year, deep down, I’m not feeling all that guilty about it.

When I was making my grand plans I didn’t take into account how much of a cluttered mess months of home improvement would leave.  And putting up eight foot trees in my living room and entryway didn’t help. And so all this December I’ve been sorting through piles of various sizes and putting tools and materials back in their proper places, or making new spaces for them.  This past weekend, when I could have been decorating my trees, I assembled bookshelves instead—and put them right to use.  Half the home improvement projects were meant to better insulate this drafty money pit where I live, and it seems to be working.  Hardly hearing my checking account-gobbling furnace rumble to life this month has been almost as sweet a sound as a children’s choir singing “Silent Night”. 

And yet there would have been something comforting about coming home from the night shift and weeks of mandatory overtime to a lighted Christmas tree.

Maybe what I worry about most is that this year I’ve realized how easy it has become not to celebrate Christmas.  Sure, this Sunday I’ll be back at my mother’s house in Indiana exchanging gifts with the rest of my family.  I’ll be with her on the 25^th, and I’m sure more relatives will stop by to say hello.  Being with family is important during the holidays.  I guess I’ll have three days to celebrate Christmas, though I wish it could have been longer. 

Oh well, maybe next year.