Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding!

Do you have a “Cardinal Rule?” I do and I broke mine today. How? I went to the mall.

You see, it’s the week before Thanksgiving. That means it’s after October 15, my “drop-dead-last-day-in-a-mall-before-Christmas” Cardinal Rule.

I don’t do last-minute Christmas shopping. I shop a great deal online, which means much of my shopping is done before fall begins. We also frequent craft shows, antique stores and festivals, all of which are in abundance in south central Pennsylvania. Plus, we celebrate “Boxing Day” (December 26) thanks to my fiancé’s Anglophile perspective on life. Shopping for all sorts of presents begins the day after Christmas. You should only HOPE to get the deals we get!

So why did I chose to title this week’s blog, “Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding?” You have endured my three paragraph, “get-to-the-point, Terry!” set-up – a minimum requirement I’ve set when I’m sleep-deprived, had too much caffeine and some ADHD has kicked in – so you deserve the answer! Two words:

SALVATION ARMY

Really? November 20^th and the bell ringers have to be out already? I mean the mall isn’t even decorated for Christmas yet. Seriously?

ARGHHH … another Christmas holiday has arrived, regardless of what the calendar says, and “BINGO!” – all the things I still need and want to do before the holiday arrives comes flooding into my little brain, causing me a mini-minor scheduling meltdown.

Do you ever feel that way? You’re cruising along in life, having a delightful day, feeling like you have the tiger by the tail and the world is your oyster, and THEN it happens! You remember you were supposed to do something (like write a major article whose deadline is ten days away); you’re having guests for dinner and the food you were supposed to lay out to thaw is still in the deep freeze; or, you answer a call to find out that a friend has been waiting for the last hour for you to show up for lunch. You get the idea.

I don’t know what might cause you to have these “Shut-The-Front-Door” moments, but I can tell you how it usually is for me. Normally when stuff like this happens I find that I have scheduled so many things to do, or that I am so overwhelmed with worry about a situation, that my mind just plain stops working.

I can’t find my keys – probably a good idea since the last place I should be at a time like that is behind the wheel of a vehicle. I forget to feed the fish. I forget to feed Terry. I simply stop remembering what I’m supposed to be doing and find my mind off on an Australian-style walkabout. While amusing to others it can be most annoying to me.

There is another reason I felt the way I did earlier today with the bell ringer. It’s completely and totally ego-related. I don’t recall giving my consent for the Salvation Army to set up this week (not that they’ve asked in the past, mind you), and since they did so without any warning (HOW RUDE!), I was literally forced into the realization that Christmas is closer than I thought.

Now isn’t that just silly? I mean it’s not like it’s Easter or Hanukah that changes every year according to the lunar calendar. There it is, right there, smack dab on December 25, every year, year after year. Amazing how that works, non?

I hope you’re relating to this. Quite frankly, I’d hate to think I was the only person in the world who has ever has this type of thing happen to them. The way I deal with ego meltdowns is to laugh. That probably annoys the dickens out of my ego, but I’m not going to lose sleep over that. If you find you are a little surprised by events, the actions of others, or just something that doesn’t fit your pictures, might you be willing to try that? Just laugh. I mean have a good, old fashioned belly laugh. You’d be amazed at how well this works.

I mean, compared to world peace, how important are our problems or upsets anyway?

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness (and laughter!)

Terry