Christmas has been the twenty-fifth day of December for, what, some two thousand years or so? I know it’s been that date for the last 35 years, my mom has photographic proof.

So why does it sneak up on me every year? Every November, I’m blissfully oblivious of my previous Christmas Panic history. Oh, I have a handle on everything this year…shouldn’t be too bad… And then Thanksgiving hits (late this year, which only made it all worse) and Holy Crap I have how many days? Compounding the late Thanksgiving is that we’re jumping into the MomVan at o’dark thirty Saturday morning and hauling tail to Chicago. And then Iowa. And then home.

I have three and a half days to:

• finish my Christmas shopping (thankfully Santa got his jolly ass in gear this summer and hid things away)
• get the Christmas card done (thankfully the boys cooperated last night and we got a lovely shot of them in their jammies in front of the tree. Santa hats hid the fact that they’re both two weeks overdue for a haircut)
• pack for two weeks on the road
• type up notes for the friend who is watching Rosie
• go through the boys’ clothes because they are either eating their clothes as they sleep or they’re conspiring to drive me batshit crazy…where are their warm clothes?
• finalize appointments A’s skin patch testing for when we get home (ohpleaseohplease, get us in this year…new deductible Jan. 1…)
• figure out if we’re going to make gluten free Christmas cookies (thinking no…this is not the time of year to try something new…and there is a gluten free bakery down the street from my parents’ house). Ok, decision made…crossing that bad boy off my list…
• send in Campbells Soup labels for the school; need to be in by the end of the month
• everything else I do here on a regular basis

Is it any wonder my shoulders are aching? Pure. Stress. It’s either that or early-onset arthritis, take your pick. It sure isn’t from the snow shoveling I didn’t do this morning.

Bleh. Off to volunteer in the classroom…

Related posts:

1. They might be faulty, but they're my memories
2. …and a happy New Year!
3. Things that make my spinal cord try to leap up my back to throttle my brain
4. It's the most…hideous time…of the year
5. 2006 year in review

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