A couple weeks before Halloween, I was driving to work and noticed they were putting holiday lights on the trees that line Mill Avenue, the main drag in our college town.

I started to harrumph — and I stopped myself. This year, I vowed, I will not complain about how early the holidays start. I will not spend from Halloween to Thanksgiving bitching, then from Thanksgiving to Christmas killing myself to get everything done.

I’m just going to enjoy myself. (Which may or may include buying the above wreath from Kooky Krafts. Cool, huh?)

Now, that’s an incredibly lofty goal, particularly for me. I tend to get, um, a little obsessive around the holidays.

The other day something came up at work about some task that will need to be performed in December, and one of my colleagues said, “Oh, don’t worry about it, I know that’s a crazy time of year for you.”

Really? I’m that much worse than everyone else?

Not this year. This year I will not complain, I will not stress. I will — well, this will sound corny, but I’m going to treat this holiday season as if it were my last. 

Last year, I thought about this a lot, as I watched my mother in law struggle with lung cancer. I bought her gifts with extra care, made sure I had her favorite sugar cookies on hand. I had nothing on her — she’d been shopping for months. She considered cancelling her Christmas Day dinner, but instead we all split up the cooking duties. Ray made her stuffing perfectly.

Annabelle spent much of that day on the couch, buried in her new Nintendo DS. I desperately wanted to tell her to get off her butt and spend some time with Grandma, but I didn’t. She was too little to understand that one of her favorite people in the world might not be around for another Christmas.  

My mother in law died in February. Last night, as I was tucking her in, Annabelle rolled over and said something I know she’s been thinking, but which I haven’t heard her say, all these months.

“I miss Grandma.”

Me too, I told her, adding silently to myself, particularly this time of year.