Don’t Blink or You’ll Miss It

This is turning out to be about the fastest Holiday season on record. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to August, and here it is, less than three weeks until Christmas.

Time was, it was the challenge of baking, cooking, decorating and housecleaning, making sure there was a gift for everyone on the list, getting out the Christmas cards, and attending everyone else's Christmas parties that caused one to need the entire month of January just to recuperate. Why is it, then, that even though I don't do any of these things anymore, I'm still running around like a chicken with my head cut off?

Well, let's see. Now, I have a house and a restaurant to decorate for the holidays. I have employees for whom I must organize a party and other fun stuff (this must be worse than having kids…?) I have other people's parties to plan and fuss over (two parties of fifteen last Thursday, and a party for 50 renting the entire café next Saturday night…YAAAH!)

And I have to stress out about the economy and how it is ultimately going to affect my little fledgling business. Every morning I grill myself on whether it looks like we're finally going to take the hit, and what I should do about it when and if we are. Should I sink money I don't really have into marketing just to keep butts in the seats? Will I have to start literally giving food away just to keep butts in the seats? At what point would an empty dining room be costing me less money than trying to keep it full? These questions are banging around in the back of my head like the seeds of the mother of all migraines. Yet I can't seem to dwell too consciously on them ,because I'm almost afraid that giving my secret dread too much credence will bring it that much closer to reality. And I want to keep as far away from that reality as I possibly can.

So, I expend a lot of energy putting a good face on it, exuding positive attitude. Because, in the end, if we do tank as a result of the economic downturn, there's not a whole lot I'll be able to do about it, anyway. And the constant energy drain makes me feel like I've run ten miles by the end of every day.

So today is my "day off," and I have to spend it…doing everything BUT having an actual day off. Come about ten o'clock tonight, I'll flop into my recliner and just…sit. For thirty seconds, before I pass out.

But, ahhh….don't we all love the holidays!