Christmas is now in 24 days


Man, I need a few days at work I’m bushed! . There’s nothing like a few days off in a row to really leave you wrung out! I'm going to need a few days of R&R at my desk to recover.

I don’t think I stopped moving the whole time. Three malls, four melted credit cards, six bags and one pair of busted shoes. I did my part for the economy. The mail man is going to put his back out bringing my credit cards bills home to roost but I did finished all my shopping. Knock wood. I’m done with all the family gifts but I’m not entirely done because we haven’t started Secret Santa at work yet, and I haven’t started my dog cookies yet or wrapped anything or even started Christmas cards and I have one friend who is still gift-less, but I’m calling it “finished” because the hard part is finished. Now I have to figure out how to wrap an elephant.

Secret Santa is either going to be very easy or very hard. I have a pretty good idea of five days worth of gifties for just about everyone who is going to participate but there is a wild card who I know nothing about, I know she’s a Master of Social Work and has a young child but that is the sum total of what I know about her. I’m hoping I get someone else, any one else but I know I’m going to get her because that’s the way it works, I know I’m not going to get one of the three women I could Secret Santa in my sleep, because that would be too easy and  Gawd forbid Secret Santa be easy.

I could just go to Poverty Barn and pick up five seasonal thingies and leave it there. That would be easy and fast and cheap. But nooooo! I can’t have that! I want to get them things they may actually want and to be honest, how many Christmas thingies does anyone really want? December 26 that stuff goes from cute to trash really fast. I mean if you are a Snowman person you don’t want Santas and if you are an Angel person a Penguin is going to leave you cold. And does anyone actually want napkin rings? I mean really? It’s a paper napkin world people! And how about kicky place cards? I see them all over the place in stores but I don’t think I have ever seen them in person except at very fancy wedding receptions and you know, those weren’t “kicky” if memory serves.

I guess they are marketed as hostess gifts but do you really want to eat dinner with some one who would actually use them? Hi! There are four of us and four chairs! Find your place! NO! You can’t eat there, you eat there, that is your chair! You? You are here! Not there, No!. I think I’d worry about why it was so important that I ate in that chair...

Speaking dog cookies. I did a little prep-work on them and finally settled on a container for them. It’s a big step, trust me. I looked at catalogues, I shopped online and I looked through stores. I finally found a good candidate I, brought them home and took them out. It turns out they are too small and the first one tore when I touched it. No, I don’t have the receipt. Why would I save that? Gah. But on the upside, Alphagal is going to let me use her super-duper high end electric mixer and that is going to make a lot of difference in the time it takes to put the cookies together and I bet I get a better quality dough in the process. I’m very stoked.