Conflicting Neurosis

This is the one week (well, five days, really) of the year where my crazies don’t align.  
 

First and foremost is my (probably) obsessive need to have things neat, tidy and orderly.  I don’t do clutter in any way, shape or form; if I’m in a cluttered place, even out in public, I cannot relax and I always feel a little bit on edge.  The result is that in my home, everything has a place and rarely will you find anything messy or out of sorts.  Upon seeing my dirty clothes hamper, my niece once exclaimed, “Even Aunt Michelle’s dirty laundry is organized!”  It’s true.  In addition to my aversion to physical clutter, I’m also opposed to any kind of mental clutter and one of my ways of eliminating that is to have rules and procedures for pretty much everything.  Things must match, things must coordinate, and there must be a reason for practically everything.  

The other thing that I’m extremely particular about is my adherence to holiday traditions.  I suppose it’s an extension of my need for order, but there is a prescribed time for most holiday things, including (especially) the putting up of decorations.  With regards to the outdoor Christmas decorations specifically, it’s very important to me that they are up and running on Thanksgiving night.  After eating myself silly for the day and having my aunt’s amazing potato casserole for desert (seriously, I’ll skip the pie for it), I want my outdoors to be wonderfully Christmassy as we pull into the driveway.  This isn’t a problem for the decorations out front; we always put them up early on Thanksgiving morning before we head out and thanks to timers, they’re on when we return.  The back poses a bit of a problem though.  We don’t have time to get everything up out there on Thanksgiving morning, so in order for it to be ready to go that evening; it must be put up earlier.  I need Andy’s help and since it gets dark early now, we can’t do it on a weeknight after work, so the Sunday before Thanksgiving (today) is always the day to decorate the back.  I promise that I don’t turn anything on yet; we won’t enjoy them until Thursday night.  But they had to go up today.

The problem is that this messes with my aforementioned sense of order.  Out front and all throughout my house, it’s fall and orange and leafy and festive.  But then as I sit on the couch enjoying the Thanksgiving themed inside, I see Christmas stuff out back.  It messes with my orderly brain.  One shouldn’t be viewing two seasons at once!

I think that I’m just going to keep the back blinds closed for the next 96 hours.  If I don’t see Christmas, I can pretend that it isn’t out there just yet!