Awaiting the proverbial shoe

Those of you who read the JPC board have already seen the majority of the first few paragraphs of this post. My apologies for the repeat. It is still weighing heavily on my mind.

As far as Christmas goes, I am as done as I can be at this point. All Christmas cards have been sent, all presents have been bought or ordered, and all the ones that have arrived already have been wrapped (still waiting on several shipments), even if we can't put them out yet due to cats and kid. They are currently sitting in my closet. Most of the out of town packages have gone out; if Amazon would just hurry up and get my boxes to me, I'd be done with that, too! I've even packed the stockings already (we're using buckets this year, but they're cute), so all I have to do is set those out Christmas morning.

The Christmas menu is set, and I've started buying the groceries. Dry goods/non-perishables were last week, this week is cold stuff that will keep (cheeses, frozen meats, etc), and next week is fresh meat, dairy, and produce. Most of the decorating is done, sans tree, and we're waiting as long as possible on that one to allow for minimal destruct... I mean, temptation for four cats (who have never seen a Christmas tree before) and a 14-month-old. Will probably go up around the 20th or so. Can't make any of the goodies this far ahead, so must wait on that. Actuall, I think I just decided not to put the tree up. Might go hunt for a small inexpensive one tomorrow, but the thought of putting up a huge tree that would take up most of the foyer, which Luke likes to use as a play area, just doesn't seem fair. So, no tree. Guess that means all I really have left to do is clean the bathrooms and vacuum the house from top to bottom (as opposed to those "spot clean" type jobs I normally do).

Trust me, I'm not always this prepared. Even DH can't believe we're so far ahead of the game. That means something catastrophic is going to happen, and it will probably wait for my family to get here to do it. ::sigh:: Just waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop. I hate feeling like this. I wish that whatever it is that is going to go wrong (and there will be something), it would go ahead and do it, so I could stop worrying about it.

I'm worried about everything this year. I had no idea hosting Christmas would be so stressful! It shouldn't be. Even if something goes wrong, my family won't care. But it's still niggling at me. We've spent the last 15 Christmases at my parents' house in my home town, from high school through last year. It is kind-of exciting to do it somewhere new, but I gotta say, it's rather nerve-wracking for me personally, since it will be at *my* house! What if no body likes the food? What if my brother doesn't get any sleep since we have no bed for him? (He'll be on the couch, though he swears he doesn't mind.) No one will enjoy themselves because it doesn't look Christmas-y enough, since all we'll have up is fake stockings (it's a table runner; it can't actually hold goodies, thus the buckets discussed earlier) and no tree. It won't feel like Christmas because we can't put gifts under the tree due to cats and baby. What if no one likes what I got them? What if everyone goes home and says they wish we'd had it at my parents' instead because it was the worst Christmas ever! Okay, so I doubt that last part, but I still don't want people feeling sorry because it was "missing something" being here instead of at "home." ::sigh:: Ten more days, and I'll be put out of most of my misery.

Unless the catastrophe waits for everyone to get here before occurring, in which case I have yet more worrying to do.

Currently feeling: restless