Getting There

My shopping is almost done! My shopping is almost done! My shopping is almost done! I did spend much of the rest of Tuesday shopping, and I got my ass out of the house today to do a whole lot more shopping. My shopping is almost done!

Enough of that.

I'm feeling much better about things today. Gift-wise anyway. Bank-wise, I'm feeling a little sick. I'm making money now and all that good stuff, but I still feel like I slashed our checking account's throat and let it bleed out into the very streets. Store owners should be thrilled to death with me. And I am thrilled with myself too, even if we do have to live off of soup and crackers for the next week or so.

I did some wrapping this afternoon too, so I won't be stuck wrapping forty gifts on Christmas Eve. It's not the whole Santa routine that makes us stay up into the wee hours of the night with all that wrapping. You wouldn't think it takes so long to put paper and tape around some boxes.

It does help that I'm not making my own wrapping paper or gift tags like a fool this year. I'm still getting a little fancier than I probably should, but since I'm starting a whole five days early, I will only curse half as much as usual. And I might get to bed by 1:00 instead of 2:00 on Christmas Eve.

You know I dig my wrapping themes. A couple years ago, it was the blue and silver thing with snowflakes. Last year was the homemade stuff with brown paper and red paint with gingerbread men. This year I'm doing gold and red with stars. If I were all-out goofy, I'd decorate my tree and house in a theme too. If it weren't for the fact it would cost me another fortune, I might be tempted to do it though. I do love to decorate.

I'm slowly getting smarter. I have figured out that decorating is funfunfun, but taking it down bites my butt, so I do less decorating. Now I know why my mom and dad never put lights on our house. It's a pain in the ass. I have never put lights on my house. I have put them in the windows and on the porch railing. I even own a ton of icicle lights, but they have never managed to make their way on our house. If they ever did get put up, I know we would be one of those families that still have Christmas lights up in July. No thanks.

So our house is a pitiful black hole amongst all the lit up houses on our street. I didn't even get the lights on the porch this year. It's that damn job. And now that I finally feel like there's time to put the lights up, there are only five days to Christmas. Even though I keep everything decorated for the entire twelve days of Christmas (those start on Christmas day, by the way), it still doesn't seem worth the effort. If the kids bug me enough, I might still do it, but that's about the only way.

I keep getting distracted from writing and going off to do other things. That's a sure sign I've written about all that will come out at this point.