C. Fite's Santas and Cousin Margaret's "Fuck-It" List

Katherine here.

I'm a creature of guilt.  It's not fair.  I'm not even one of those religions that feeds itself on guilt.  I hate that I'm pretty much consumed by guilt because I've given myself a snow day when I could get to my schools by adding some driving time and getting into my pioneer mood.  It's pretty windy though.  My pioneer mood sucks when it comes to wind.

I figure if I do something productive like writing this, my guilt will abate a bit.  At the moment the only productive alternative I could think of that felt worthy of snow day status was to plug away at our traditional holiday jigsaw puzzle.  I need to build up to that.  It's a Van Gogh Paris street scene done in 1,000 seemingly identical pieces.  Progress has been slow although I tucked in two orangish pieces yesterday.  Jim has done more on the puzzle than I have.  I feel like a slacker.  Guilt.

I had an interesting bout of playful guilt recently when we had a fun dinner over at the Fite-Garland home.  Wondrous and varied Santas populated the whole place.  There were two miniature forests of long and lean Christmas trees replacing the one central tree most of us do.  The trees were decorated thematically both in color and content.  Did I mention there were Santas everywhere?

The Santas, Cindy explained, arose from an outing with her sister and Mom where they all purchased an identical Santa one year long ago.  Each year, each woman buys three Santas and shares two with the others and each year a home is populated with the same Santas in different places and in different formations.  So cool.

Part of me is filled with wonder and part of me realizes that if I had done something like that, I'd have no place to store the Santas and they wouldn't look right with me as their guardian.

The whole thing reminded me of a lifetime of guilt I have about holiday decorating.  I didn't get the holiday decorating gene.  I was a working mom with three kids and a huge amount of grading around every holiday I can think of except the 4th of July and even with that one I never got a buzz out of watching fireworks.

I did the basics for holidays.  We carved pumpkins, did the Valentine thing, and the Easter Bunny arrived dutifully though without the house looking any differently than it normally did.  At Christmas we have one very tall tree decorated with a lifetime of gorgeous ornaments and red bows and if I'm feeling extra festive, I add some red poinsettias to the living room.  I like red.

I was feeling really festive this year.  I  designed new bows and had the Christmas store make them for our big tree and bought new lights.  The bows are chartreuse, purple and red.  I bought two purple poinsettias and one very large white one.  From my point of view, this was a decoration revolution of sorts.  I was in a kind of gung-ho mood.

Then I went to Cindy's.  It was so beautiful.  So full of love and history and good taste.  I guess that was it.  C's house was one of the few I'd ever seen outside some special tour or a Christmas store that was not cute.  It was really beautiful.

I felt guilty for a bit over my holiday efforts, but I'm over that.  Even though the decor is restrained, it's really pretty.  I like my little snowman sitting on the mantle, tucked between one purple poinsettia and some green fern thing that's meant to look like a miniature Christmas tree.  I like my big tree and it's new bows and lights.  Even though it's not for Christmas, I like my forest of orchids that make it seem the fish in the paintings on the wall above them are swimming through something sea-like.  I even like the unfinished jigsaw puzzle that occupies the coffee table.  My house looks good.

I had a kind of monumental moment when I realized how much I liked my house and it's holiday decor after my return from Cindy's wonderland.  My house is just fine so  I put massive holiday decorating on my "Fuck It" list.  It was great.

I need to talk about the list and it's origins.  My cousin Margaret invented it.  Margaret is just a bit older than me and she's been a real-life mentor since I was little.  She taught me to shuffle cards, paint my nails, and to dance the twist in her garage.  She's taught me how to make pickles in the last year.  I hope everybody has a cousin Margaret.  I think she's an essential person to my perspective on lots of things.  She's a great teacher and one of her best recent lessons is about her "Fuck It" list.

When you get to be Margaret's age, my age, there are things you just don't want to do anymore.  If you can stop doing them without harming others or yourself, she says it's time to "Fuck It."  It seemed so easy at first.

It's been interesting working on my own "Fuck It" list.  I'm circling back to guilt here.  I spent a week trying to put something on my list.  Every time I got close, I started worrying--what if America needs me to make phone calls at a phone bank again, what if my absence from an exercise class gets the class cancelled for lack of attendance--it was a hellish week of trying desperately to put something on the list without success.  I felt guilty about that too.

I texted Margaret (too embarrassed to call) and I asked if I put something on the "Fuck It" list, could I take if off later if need be.  She assured me it would be okay.  Whew.

I still struggle with my own "Fuck It" list.  Nevertheless, it is slowly growing.  It's pretty liberating.  Try it sometime.

Katherine's "Fuck it" List.

1.  Making phone calls from a phone bank for any reason.
2.  Showing up consistently for any organized exercise class.
3.  Wearing the prosthetic boobs I bought.
4.  Decorating my house to the hilt for any holiday.