I will if you will! AKA No pressure!

I've been wondering when our packages were going to arrive. That is to say, the packages others are sending to us. For Christmas. The most stressful event of the entire year, in my opinion. Today, the 22nd of December, we received 3 packages. One for hubby, who has been waiting for some of his orders to arrive. Two are from loving family members who live far away. Every year we exchange gifts with two families, so now I am conditioned to expect to receive packages from them. And I look for them. It's part of the deal. Part of the expectation that is Christmas. And to make it all fit, they have to arrive before December 25th. No pressure, right? Ugh! Wrong! Many folks are working full time, and have to fit their shopping in after work, before work, on the weekends...... and let's face it. As a society, as a species, we are procrastinators. Which only adds to the pressure and the stress. And the closer we get to the day, the more of us there are out there. At the stores, at the gas stations, on the roads, at the post office........everywhere! But we do it anyway. Why? Because it is expected! If we don't, we fail! We will disappoint people and feel bad! So why do we wait? Because we are predictable critters, and we are very routine.

So. Today, just now, I watched as the mail carrier zoomed around the neighborhood. I collected the mail, which was placed by the door, because it included hubby's package. (I adore my mail carrier, who always leaves the mail with the package, right by the door!) I wondered, again, why we have NO Christmas cards in the mail. We've had so few this year! However I mailed far fewer than usual. I am working on reducing stress in my life, so I did as many as I felt like doing, and no more. I'll worry later about who I've left out! (ugh) Then I noticed a different mail truck, parked in front of the house. Along came package #1 from far away. A glance at the cost on the shipping label put me right into this whole thought journey. $43.20. FORTY-THREE DOLLARS to send this package, of average size, from one part of this country to another. Why? Because it HAD to get here by December 25th. A minute or so later, my usual mail carrier was back, parked in the driveway, with package #2 from far away, this one to the tune of $11.37. Still a ridiculous amount of money to send someone a package, IMHO. Sheesh! I sent 3 packages this year, to those two far away places and one other, to the tune of $20.50. It would be an interesting study to find out just how much is spent each December just mailing things from one place to another. Wow! How many people, animals, small countries, could be fed/clothed/educated with that money? Hey, now that's an idea.......

Anyhow, the point of my blabberations this afternoon are simply that in my attempt to reduce stress in my life, and hopefully the chronic ache that has settled into my neck, I am focusing on external sources of stress, and this is one. Expectation, pressure, hurry, presidence (sp??). And what is it for? Regardless, we have to do it, right? And the money. And the things we buy that no one realized he/she needed (!)

So how do we make it less stressful and time consuming and stress-producing? Ah.