Let me start by saying I am immensely grateful for everything I have. I know that people have dealt with much worse, especially this year.
That said, I've been in the middle of the move that never ends for the greater part of 2020. The move follows a house hunt that has spanned three years, none of which has been easy. There were more downs than ups until we finally landed in our new home.
After a few false starts, we moved in just before Labor Day weekend. It was just in time for a fresh start. The start of school, in-person in our case, lined up perfectly and it all just felt like it was going to be a nice, fresh start.
It has been, but it’s also been a huge struggle. Trying to unpack while life is happening is harder than it looks. The beginning of the school year in a new school was a lot to get through and it definitely impeded on the unpacking efforts. I was determined to be unpacked by Halloween … then Thanksgiving … and now the winter holidays.
We’re finally in the home stretch of unpacking, but the holiday season has snuck up on us. I’m pretty exhausted, but still determined to make our first one here something special. That’s an adventure best explained in GIFs.
No matter how many times I move, I never feel like I get the hang of moving.
Is it just an impossible process to perfect? I need answers because there are people who move far more frequently than I and somehow manage to take less than a year to unpack their homes. At any rate, when I moved in September and people joked about us unpacking in time for Christmas, I was appalled at the idea it would take that long. If it was up to me, we'd be completely unpacked by the end of Labor Day weekend.
But it was not up to me.
It turns out that even though I've moved three times in around four years, I still have no idea what I'm doing. As a result, even though I think I can unpack everything at the speed of light, I actually can't. See, I had things coming from three different locations, some of which had been hastily packed for what I thought would be two months but ended up being two years.
My first goal was Halloween, but that … did not happen.
Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I would have loved nothing more than to deck the whole house out and celebrate. Sadly, we were nowhere near ready for that. Still more boxes than furniture, I reset my vision to try and get everything done by Thanksgiving.
The pressure hit me somewhere around the second week of November.
At the point that I was brainstorming menu items, it was time to admit that Thanksgiving was really going to happen. It was not, however, going to happen at my table. The unpacking and repair was turning a corner, but the place was nowhere near put together enough for a full-on Thanksgiving meal.
It's the most panicky time of the year.
I maneuvered my way through Thanksgiving and worked things out, but I get the feeling everyone wants a real holiday for Christmas. I'm also haunted by everyone who said it would take until now to get this done. The idea of a holly jolly holiday, even among my family of three, is a little more than I can bear at the moment.
You see friends, Christmas is not my favorite time of the year.
It's just … a lot. A lot of people, a lot of lights and sounds, a lot of money. Even with the ways this year is going to differ, it just feels overwhelming to have to celebrate a holiday in the middle of a move in the middle of a health crisis in the middle of a climate criss and … you get it.
There's something else I've learned this year, though.
2020 has been trying to teach us like an afterschool special, and it has broken through to me in some aspects. I learned how important it is to have and make memories. I learned that it's not always about me. During the holiday season, that feels even more true.
My house is still not entirely unpacked.
Maybe it doesn't need to be entirely unpacked to make it a good, memorable holiday. Maybe we all just have to show up and share the cheer we can muster up. This year, I'll pull it together because it won't ever be our first holiday in the house again and we might as well make the most with what we've been able to accomplish.
I took my first step.
I'm still totally overwhelmed, but I've taken the first step at making the holiday cozy for my family. I got started with our brand new little red tree. It's adorable, it puts a little bit of cheer in my green living room (very Christmassy vibes), and I can probably get away with tweaking the décor and keeping it up through Valentine's Day. Maybe I'll finish unpacking by then.
