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So if you know me at all or follow my rambles on The Joy-Cafe you know we had a HUGE real-live tree last year.  If you don’t know this, you can read about it HERE – The Abominable Christmas Tree!! 

The Christmas tree farm down the road was “going out of business” (although how you can do that when trees will keep growing…).  Anyway, they were selling the last of their trees at rock bottom price and Alpha Son decided we needed a real tree that year.  I know the real reason was because it wouldn’t fit in his house (it was 12 foot high) so he blessed us with it.  I hadn’t had a real tree since a year or two after marrying Alpha Hubby.  He loves fake trees.  I’d never had a fake tree in my entire life.  It was an interesting change over for me.

But I digress.

This year, due to the moving… ummm… fiasco?  Due to circumstances beyond our control, almost everything we own is packed up and sitting in the large garage/shop.  Because we had JUST finished packing for the move that didn’t happen (yet), I wasn’t in the mood to unpack just to set up a tree for a few weeks then take it down and REPACK everything.  I made the command decision not to decorate this year.

When we finished packing up my mom’s storage shed a few days ago for the house sale, I went through mom’s Christmas decorations.  The left-over boxes were taken to my sunroom.  I couldn’t stand it.  I had to do SOMETHING.  So I managed to put a few things out and put up a “tree” of sorts.  It is a fibre opitc tree and it only stands 2.5 feet tall – so it sits on my countertop – but it’s pretty.  And it says “CHRISTMAS” and I feel better.  I need to decorate it a little but the glow from the optics is very neat.

This season, I am not going to overeat and blow my LBD journey.  It will take wise choices BEFORE sitting down to eat – or standing up to cook for that matter.  Licking spoons and test-tasting recipes all count toward that calorie goal I set for myself daily.  My problem is that I’ve never counted the licking of spoons and test-tasting of recipes as calores that… well, count.

Probably the most important thing I’ve learned on this journey back into my little black dress(es) is that planning ahead is your ace in the hole.  If you plan ahead, you don’t get blindsided by sweets or dips or chips.  You don’t get taken down by too much cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy.  You don’t get wiped out by hot rolls dripping butter.  Oh, and please, don’t forget the pumpkin pie with the canned whipped cream.  It lurks at the end of dinner, waiting to wipe the self-righteous smirk off your face from thinking you ate right.

Don’t stress this Christmas but also plan ahead a little.  Think about what you will be eating and instead of saying, “NO, I CAN’T HAVE THAT” eat a smaller amount than normal.  Drink a 16 ounce glass of water about 30 minutes before you’ll be sitting down to the table.  Take a small bit of everything you want to eat, then plan for a small piece of dessert.  Then push away from the table and see if you aren’t comfortably full without being groaningly stuffed!

That’s what I plan to do this Christmas dinner – enjoy but not overindulge,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Oh, I’m not really feeling humbug. Not really. But it was almost hard to get into the spirit of Christmas this year. I mean, really. Imagine being all packed up to move and then not moving! It did change my focus to: what is Christmas really all about?

This? Which is NOT this year’s tree, by the way, since we didn’t decorate a tree. Nope, the tree is packed away – along with our decorations –  for the move that never happened.

    OR    OR 

Or maybe this? Except this stuff is not on my acceptable foods list this year.  And since it is my first Christmas without mom who was the cookie meister, no one misses them that much.  Really.  No one.  Oh my gosh, I think I will cry.  Oh wait!  I don’t really miss them since we changed our eating habits.  Well all righty then!  Who’s up for some… celery?  Checking… checking… nope. It’s NOT ME.

For sure Christmas is NOT this:
  OR THIS: 

BECAAAUUUSE – if you’re not careful, you’ll get THESE:

And for sure it’s NOT about this guy (who is a MAJOR cause of the previous picture)!

This year, because we aren’t doing the “usual, habitual” things, I’ve ended up focusing on the real spirit of Christmas such as this:

Giving.  Take care of those less fortunate who are around you and have so little compared to you.  Pick one charity this year and make a donation worthy of the REAL reason for Christmas – HIM:

MERRY, MERRY:

I have been contemplating belly buttons.  No, not really.   Oh, okay, maybe a little.  Maybe the bellies that go with the buttons.

I’ve noticed lately that a lot of bloggers have been talking about how they fell off the weight loss wagon and they are very unhappy with themselves. Or they feel like total failures for not having reached an end-of the year goal.

I got to thinking about my own set-backs recently and getting off-track.  Then I had the amazing revelation.  That I was even paying attention and stopping the downward spiral was far more important than the fact I slipped a little.  Before, I would “blow it” and give up.  It might be six months or more before I got unhappy enough to start all over.

This time, since May, I’ve never one time stopped thinking about my goals and this time, I actually REFUSED TO QUIT.

So maybe my goal is to be closer to the below picture but here is a little secret I’ve learned:

AS LONG AS I DON’T QUIT, I WILL GET THERE.  How long it takes me to get there is in my power and NO one elses.  I make choices every day – every hour – that support that goal or undermine that goal.  But if I will keep going forward, even if I do slip backward once in awhile, I WILL GET THERE.

We spend too much time focusing on what we are doing wrong. I say it is past time that we focus on and look for what we are doing right.