Early Christmas Present(s)...

Soooo, as most of you know, I'm not really good at this whole "Christmas" thing. The whole, "Put up Chrismas lights, decorations, and the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, buy presents, wrap them, send out Christmas cards with a family picture and a cute, detailed newletter describing what my family is up do, stockings filled with fun little toys and candy, blah, blah, blah". That is not how it usually goes at MY house... I kind of have my OWN family tradition...

At my house (the last few years, anyways) my family tradition goes a little something like this:

• Do Christmas shopping whenever I have extra time. (Weekends, lunch hours, etc)


• Put up Tree (skip the lights outside) SOMETIME in December.


• Decorate the Tree SOMETIME before Christmas Eve.


• Buy Christmas cards on one of my shopping outtings.


• Make the same list over and over again for who I need to still buy for and what I will get them...


• TRY to make an appointment for family pictures (to put in my Christmas Cards, of course), always too late, never able to get in before Christmas...


• Take one final shopping trip with my Daddy on Christmas Eve (sometimes on the 23rd instead).


• Sit up all night on Christmas Eve drinking, watching A Christmas Story, eating Santa's cookies and wrapping my "plethora" of gifts.


• Realize I never sent my fucking Christmas cards out, and have another drink to make me feel better about fucking this up, YET AGAIN.

So, that is USUALLY how it goes. So this year, I really wanted to get some things done more efficiently, and make the holiday a little more enjoyable for my kids...

What a fucking joke.

I HAVE done all my Christmas shopping (yea for me), and my Tree IS up (not decorated, oops). I bought more Christmas cards, and Pat showed me a drawer in the office that has 17 boxes of unused Christmas cards from years past. Oops. I tried to call the photo place, again a week or two too late, and they were unable to fit me in before Christmas. Drats. Oh, and a newsletter? Wtf ever. No way in hell was that getting done. I was completely deluding myself thinking that was even a possibility.

Last night, I forced Patrick to help me wrap some gifts, as I was DETERMINED to get some freakin' presents under the tree at least a day or two early. We were up until about 12:30 last night and got all the "outgoing" gifts wrapped and a few for the girls. So about half. Yea for me!!!

This morning Mia woke up at 5 am (WTH???) and I convinced her to climb in bed with us. She crawled all over me, hit me, kicked me, talked, and finally decided she wanted down. Pat got up, agreed to take her downstairs, get her some donuts, and come back and wake me up at 6:15 so I could ready for work (and let him go back to bed for a little while).

At 7:40, I woke up, and realized that I was LATE AGAIN!!! Geez! So I run downstairs and find Pat sleeping on the couch. I start YELLING (seriously yelling very loud) and he just kept right on snoring... I turned on the lights, still yelling...still snoring...

It is at this point that I realize I am standing knee deep in wrapping paper. WTF?

Mia is jumping up and down in excitment at all of her NEW TOYS!!! Yep, she unwrapped almost all the gifts...

NOW I REMEMBER WHY I DON'T WRAP GIFTS UNTIL CHRISTMAS EVE.

So, my entire evening last night was a complete waste of fucking time...Stupid mommy...

I'm going back to my old tradition... it worked much better. Oh, and while I wrote this, I realized that I have YET AGAIN forgotten to send out my Christmas cards... I will never learn, will I?

So, if you were expecting a gift from us this year, and are DYING to know what I got you, give Mia a call, I'm sure she would be happy to tell you... she knows what EVERYONE is getting this year!!!