The nightmare before Christmas

Today is only Halloween, and yet I've felt it for months, creeping into my peripheral vision, lurking around with its insidious, low-grade stress and endless to-do lists.

Christmas.

Or, more correctly, the winter holiday gift-buying season, which seems to officially begin November 1st.

I used to love Christmas, I really did. I still like Christmas, but ever since I got more seriously into the business of being an artist, Christmas has come to equal a lot of work. All of my summer now is consumed with thinking about what to make for the Christmas season, because nothing happens quickly in the ceramics world. Even if I'm really pushing my schedule, it takes me at least a month to make something start to finish, due to the drying time and multiple-stage ceramic process.

So I spend all summer thinking about what to make, when to make it, how to sell it, where to sell it, how much to sell it for. In the fall, I finally get down to the actual making of things and by then, I'm usually already behind. Take this year for instance. I'm already behind on my self-imposed schedule. I do a special Christmas ornament every year, and this year I wanted to debut them on November 1st, but due to delays in my studio, it's going to be more like November 10th, assuming they all turn out ok in the firing, which a good potter never assumes!

This will be my third Christmas on Etsy. Before Etsy (BE?), I usually did one small group holiday sale with the Foothills Clay Arts program, and I thought that was pretty difficult. Then, on a whim, I opened an Etsy shop in the summer of 2006 and did pretty much nothing with it until right before Christmas of that year. After my Foothills holiday sale was over, I posted all the remaining pieces to my shop. And then I got slammed. By "slammed," I mean that I got about 12 orders in five days, which was total overload for a person who had had three Etsy sales to date. I didn't know how to package stuff for shipping, that you could print postage online, none of that. And I had the most awful stomach flu. It was craziness.

In 2007, I was more prepared. I had been selling more regularly on Etsy, and therefore knew a lot more tricks. Still, my monthly sales more than doubled in both November and December, and I was spending long hours after work every night packaging orders up in my little office/guest bedroom. And I got sick again, and had to spend an evening in the ER.

I'm determined that Christmas 2008 is going to be less stressful. I've been working on a holiday attack plan since June, which has helped with all the necessary planning (although I'm already behind). And I spent a day last week organizing my office with my mom, who is very organized and tends to have more energy than me. We created this cool little shipping nook inside the closet. I'm hoping that having a designated shipping/packaging space helps me stay more sane this year.Priority Mail boxes are lined up under the table, jewelry inventory is ready to go in gift boxes, and mailers are up on the top shelf. My bubble wrap is inside the door on the other side, along with my packing peanuts. I even cable-tied a little halogen light to the clothes pole so I can see what I'm doing. It's worked pretty well so far, and I love that I can close the door on it and put it completely out of sight.

I'm doing some other things to try to reduce my stress this year. I'm going to be using Endicia.com for my shipping, instead of PayPal shipping, which is what I normally use. The reason for the switch is that Endicia can print First Class International postage, while PayPal shipping can't. International orders are the only reason I have to stand in line at the post office anymore, and being at the post office during the Christmas season makes me absolutely crazy. My goal is to not set foot in there this year. I'm going to rely on carrier pick up and the drive-up drop boxes. I'm also going to pack and ship orders only three days a week. Last year, I packed and shipped orders as they came in, which was every single day. That was too much!

I'm not a real high-energy person, so I've come to accept that I must have some built-in downtime during this stressful season. Therefore, I've declared Sundays off-limits to all studio and Etsy work, and to any and all social engagements. Sundays from now until the end of the year are reserved for sleeping in, staying home, eating snacks, and watching Broncos' games. I'll still renew listings on Etsy to stay visible, but I'm be doing it in my jammies!