Christmas Week

I'm at my parents farm this week. My mother does Christmas like no one I know. When I come home its not a normal homecoming - hi honey welcome home here is a cup of coffee. Instead it is hi honey welcome home, would you like a cup of hot chocolate (if so what flavor), a cup of coffee (with which specialty creamer?) or a cup of hot apple cider? Do you like the decorations (I can't really find my house under all of them) and how do you like the atmosphere? Is it Christmas-y enough? (And I'm expecting Santa to fall down one of the chimney's into one of the two wood burning fires that are smoking at any given moment.

OK, that's enough. I was going to go into an explanation of what Christmas at my house is like, the overwhelmingness of it all. But instead I'm going to talk about something different. The ski trip tomorrow, and how, even though I know it will be fun, it is currently ruining my life.

It is currently 10:23 pm. Not exactly a late night. But I'm getting up at 3:00 am. Which is exactly an early morning. Half the world doesn't even go to bed until then (the cool half, of which I am not a part.) For those of you who did not just do the math, that's in 4 1/2 hours. Ideally I can sleep in the truck on the way down. The problem is that I don't sleep well in vehicles, especially since I know I'm going to be doing something all day that I have done maybe 6 times before in my entire life. Skiing.

I'm not cool enough to stay up till 3 am normally, nor am I cool enough to snowboard. I ski because I sort of can. I figure why start something new when I'm actually not that good at the something old. If I applied this to relationships I'd still be going out with my first boyfriend. But in this case the relationship analogy doesn't work, because the first boyfriend is married, and my mediocrity at skiing will never leave me.

I hate it that I can't sleep before big days. Here are some not-so-philosophical questions I'd like answered:

1. How can I be more awake 1/2 an hour after I shut off my light that I was 5 minutes before it?
2. Why does my heart beat fast when I'm lying doing nothing, but when I was packing 12 minutes before there was no irregularity whatsoever?
3. How is it possible that everything that I need to do in the next month floods into my brain the moment all I need to do is sleep?
4. Why do I not take a sleeping pill the only nights that I really need to?
5. Is it okay to fake the flu just because I'm nervous about falling? The thought of staying home alone for two days while my family is out getting cold, wet and bruised is really not all that bad right now - but oh, the guilt)
6. How can I be so nervous about something that I know will go fine, just like it did last year?
7. Why do I care about all the administration stuff? The "parent" stuff? I'm a kid tomorrow, why can't I just let them take care of it, and attend the event in a que-sera-sera fashion?
8. What is the problem with sleeping? I want to, why doesn't my brain?

OK, I'm going to go take a second stab at it. And then I'm just going to lie there silently if it doesn't work. I'll update this if I live through our 2nd annual ski trip.