Last year, I was robbed of my Christmas joy. I’m still in hot pursuit of the culprit, but the Grinch is definitely on my short list.

For the first time in history, I refused to put up a tree. Suffering from an almost paralyzing depression, those around me grew quite worrisome. My mother, who wouldn’t have any of it, started sending me daily cheer-up Christmas cards in the mail. Daily. Then, whenever she would “stop by,” she would sneak a mini pre-decorated Christmas tree into a different room of my house.

In January, I wrote a nasty goodbye letter to 2009, but ended it with cheerful optimism. Little did I know, however, that 2010 would present some of the biggest challenges of my life. Not, like, hiking up a mountain, challenging – a whole different kind of challenging. Cus really, would I ever be caught hiking?

I’ll forever remember 2010 as the year that everything sucked until it became awesome. I’m pleased that at least my life-changing year is a nice, round number – it plays into my ‘Monica from Friends syndrome’ quite nicely. It was a painful year of self-reflection brought on by the culmination of a lot of ongoing poor decisions. I don’t need to list the events for you, but I went into a little detail about some them in this blog. Over the year, many of my posts have been introspective in nature, about broken hearts and broken dreams and passion and valedictorian speeches. Cus I fricken love valedictorian speeches.

So how did the year finally become awesome? And no, it’s not because I had a great revelation as I was laying on a table a month ago, waiting to find out whether or not I might have breast cancer. But I was really, really cold if that counts. It took a lot more than that. This is the year that I finally broke the cycle of the miserable existence I’ve been living – the cycle of beating myself up over poor decisions I can’t change, people who will never change, and analyzing things until I am so lost in my past regrets that I have forgotten how to live in the present.

That’s what.

[click here for the rest of my blustery, Midwesterny pictures]

And as many times as someone told me: “can’t change the past, move on”  – it didn’t matter. As many times as I told myself that I hadn’t messed up my life beyond repair – it didn’t matter, cus I didn’t believe it. Life will always be a punk, but half of the battle is your outlook and response to it. As a natural-born pessimist, the cycles in my life have been beyond hard to break. I had to do some serious work on my attitude and perspective towards life. For the first time in, well, forever, I actually feel good when I wake up in the morning. I’m excited about life. And, most importantly, I no longer look at the past decade as a total waste of time and energy. It taught me a great deal and made me into a stronger person than I ever realized.

How’s that for warm and fuzzy?

Are you freaked out yet?

Have you totally hit the unsubscribe button?

Would it smooth things over if I gave stuff away?

Stuff I’m giving away to you: [I made this big and bold to make it easier for you to skip over everything else]

Since I was a child, I have wanted to open a greeting card company. Not cus I’m great at illustrations, cus I’m not. And not cus I have the hook-up with a manufacturer, cus I don’t. And not cus I was born with a natural ability to come up with clever sayings, cus I wasn’t. But because ALL OF THEM SUCK.

Guess what? I found some that don’t suck.The company is called Foxy Blunt. Could this BE more of an arranged marriage? These cards make me want to purchase stamps again, know what I mean?

So, I am giving away a boxed set of Foxy Blunt cards of your choosing plus some cool other stuff the girls are going to throw in. I might suggest the Friendship/Love set, or the Birthday set, or the Holiday set. But what I really, REALLY love is the Thank You set and the Thinking of You set.

I trust you will make the right decision.

WAIT! Hold the mistletoe!

Don’t for one second think that I’ve forgotten about my first love, Bitter Baking Company – because I could never do such a thing. In fact, we might have to enter a three-way love affair with Foxy Blunt. You will also receive a batch of my absolute favorite sarcastic holiday cookies!

HOW TO ENTER: leave a comment telling me one positive thing that happened to you this year. Contest is open until Saturday, Dec. 18th at noon.

UPDATE: Winner of this contest is J from TwentySomethings!