Can I first say how much I’ve been deriding myself lately about being a terrible blogger?  My Bloglovin’ feed is fit to burst, I went to the Ideal Home Christmas show 2 WEEKS ago and have yet to share that with you,  I’ve got an email box overflowing with as-yet-unresponded-to emails and comment notifications that are basically gazing at me with neglected puppy dog eyes.  Oh and I haven’t actually updated my blog in a week.

I think I’m experiencing a bit of ‘blogger burnout’.  Work has been crazy busy, pulling together more quality Christmas content than you can shake a candy cane at and have been knee-deep in strategies and planning due to some changes in organisational structure, plus my commute home has suddenly gone from a doable 40 minutes to an hour and a half and sometimes two hours due to the sheer masses of traffic that have burst out of nowhere – seriously, where do all these people come from at this time of year??  It’s all been leaving me a little like a damp dish rag at the end of the day, too tired, blinking incomprehensibly at a glowing monitor, wondering how I’ve managed to string sentences together in the past so that they made sense.

And so when I should have been putting together that Ideal Home Show post, or telling you about Graham and Brown’s new shiny website and how I’ve guest posted there, or how I’ve been doing a little moonlighting by also writing for Oak Furnitureland’s blog, on Saturday night, when Wayne went out with some friends for early Christmas drinks, I decided to switch off the laptop, ignore my writing obligations, and start my Christmas decorating early.

I could have hugged 2012’s version of Kimberly for being so damned organised.  Everything was boxed by colour, labelled correctly, string lights were neatly wrapped up with extension leads in the same box, my ribbons and bows and wrapping paper all in one place.  The Kimberly version 2012 even left notes for Kimberly version 2013 like “lights for bar cart” “lights to wrap around mantle garland – with hooks”.

Who was this previous version of myself who had such forethought when I felt like I accomplished something pretty spectacular because I’d managed to wash my hair that morning and put my eyeshadow on without forgetting I’d not used any foundation first?  (Not that I screwed up the order of how I’ve been putting on makeup for the last 20 years the other morning.)  (Ok, yeah, I did.)

Whomever she may be, she feels a million miles away from me at this moment.  Decorating is therapy for me, though.  And decorating for Christmas made me feel calm and controlled.  Especially with BBC Radio 6 and the kitties for company along with a glass – ok a bottle – of wine.

I don’t think I really have a point to this post except that perhaps if you are an interiors-obsessed blog junkie, perhaps it’s healthy to not worry so much – just get half cut and decorate for Christmas.  I have a feeling that would be very bad advice but it certainly made me feel better.  (Drink and Decorate, Don’t Drink and Drive should be a new government-instilled mantra.)

Anyway, this is how my mantle ended up decorated on 30th November.  And how my tree went up already even though it’s not fully done yet.  In fact, I’d say I got a good 75% of my decorating complete so I’ll be sharing those with you as we roll on through Christmas madness.

Along with the posts I’ve yet to write and the emails I’ve yet to respond to.  Perhaps my next burst of drunken decorating will sort those out.  Or Perhaps Kimberly version 2012 will appear like a Ghost of Christmas Past and write them all for me because that girl had her shit together.

Ever experience blogger burnout?  Any tips for how you’ve gotten through it without resorting to hitting the bottle?  Want to just chat about your plans for your Christmas decor?  Go on then, the comment box awaits.