That's how it feels as the seasons begins to speed out of the starting gate of Thanksgiving and careen out of control on its way to Christmas. I've been lying low, wondering what to do with myself. We still don't have a date for Firecracker's surgery. I seem to forget things left and right. There's a poem about losing things, but I can't remember who wrote it. I have an enormous fine at the library and I will soon have to slink in sheepishly and pay it off (actually, Dear Husband told me he took care of it, bless his heart). Today we went in search of colored lights on white wire. You would think that would be pretty easy to come by, since trees come in a rainbow of colors these days. Firecracker almost had a meltdown because it looked as if we would have to settle for clear lights on white, which according to her: "That not going to be beautiful." We finally found the blasted lights, at which point Firecracker pointed at a tree with CLEAR lights and said "I like that".
From now until Christmas work is a madhouse. I have to make cookies for two different events, purchase tea for another, and make it to both my girls' school parties and the volunteer project my office signed up for, which of course are on the same blessed day. Oh, and then there's Secret Santa presents to prepare, and my final surgery, which means hauling myself to the hospital for blood work, and then there are at least three other medical appointments and probably more if I were actually keeping up to speed.
And now if I can just fend off the impulse to try for a "perfect" Christmas. I remember the Christmases of my childhood as magical, which given my parents cannot possibly have been the case. Maybe I thought Santa was so great because he had nothing to do with my family and that gave me hope. But still I surround myself with magazines full of picture of perfectly decorated trees and tables, with attractive families trekking across the snowy fields with freshly gathered evergreen branches to put on the mantle. And there are always these suggestions for inventive ways to wrap presents. Good heavens. I was so excited that I can find gift bags and tissue paper at the dollar store that I thought surely we would no longer need to tie red raffia over hand-stamped brown paper, affixing a cookie cutter or wooden spoon, loofah, manicure set, small animal or other item to the package as a sort of lagniappe. Our presents have presents. It's presents all the way down.
I'm off to figure out how to keep the cats out of the tree, since the other day I walked in to find it lying forlornly on its side.
