How I Envy My Friends!

Everyone I know is finished shopping, wrapping, and baking for the 25th. Not me. Nosiree. I've only bought a handful of gifts, we still don't have a tree, and we've devoured every cookie baked so far. (Can't help it. The Oracle is truly gifted in the cookie department.)

What's so bad is there are two gifts I have to handle that must be mail ordered, so if I don't get my hiney in gear now, I can't order them. Not unless I can find a way to successfully dodge the recipient until their New Year's Day party.

Please don't ask me why this is so. Part of it is economic. Part of it is the absolute loathing I have for going into stores and staring at shelves, racks, and display cases and deciding whether X is really a good gift for somebody.

Part of it is also a serious lack of available time slots away from my children. Usually the only time I can get away from home is when they're sleeping. That doesn't leave too many shopping options open despite extended hours at the mall. I hate the mall. I hate Wal-Mart. Oh, Heaven help me. I wish I could con my kids and get away with holding Christmas a week later when all the cool stuff is back on the shelves and on sale?

This is also the only time of year when I find that perfect something I've wanted forever, but I can't buy it because I'm not shopping for me. And chances are good that if I did succumb to temptation and buy that perfect whatever, I'll be wracked with guilt when I'm ten lousy bucks short for that perfect something for someone else.

And then there are my Christmas lights. They look awful. I strung 'em up the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and my house woefully looks like a taproom. My husband calls the strings of lights in the half-dead Japanese maple a "The Multicolored Python." We have this airblown Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the front porch. He really isn't intended for outdoor use, but I had him tucked in the corner and he made out okay last year. Last year. This year, Billy keeps dragging him all over. He got rained on last week, and now I'm not even sure that he'll work. I haven't tested him because he's plugged into the circuit running the taproom lights, and I'm so embarrassed by the taproom lights that I haven't turned them on in almost two weeks.

I've been meaning to redo the lights, finish shopping, bake, and wrap presents, but I just haven't had the time.

Now I know why my sister went to Spain over Thanskgiving.