Top Ten Holiday Countdown to the Loss of Sanity

10. Get all your holiday decor out and let it clutter up every room of the house for two entire weeks before deciding that you'll either do something with it, or put it away unused this year. Procrastinate longer and head right into the third week of epic clutter.

9. Wrap all your gifts as soon as you get them (or as soon as the kids are in school/asleep) and set them around the house as decor. Constantly monitor the kids to keep them from snooping, shaking and unwrapping.

8. Hide presents. The attic is stellar for this right up until you send the teen boy up to put away empty boxes. Only after he's up there for 15 minutes do you realize that his unwrapped gift is where the empty boxes would go.

7. School cancellations the first week of December. Seriously? It's going to be a very long winter, isn't it?

6. Finding better deals on gifts that you already bought. Now you're forced to snoop and dig in the wrapped gifts to secretly unwrap the more expensive one to return. That wrapping thing looks good, but it sucks the jolly right out of the holiday.

5. Christmas Plays. They're all fun and happy in October when the kids start practicing, but by the time the actual play comes you just want it to be over and done. And don't forget the costume that you waited until last minute to put together.

4. Dogs. While this is not a holiday-only invasion in my house, their hair and random piles of homemade presents send me over the edge at this time of year. Why? WHY? I mean, are they not getting enough attention that they suddenly have the urge to soil my house? Because they know better! And yet they regress every holiday.
3. Sewing. Because it sounds like a really good plan to have a sale at the holidays, but in reality it's the last thing that I have time for. Once I take people's money and spend it, I now have no choice but to make their shirt. (I'm eternally grateful to my loyal customers though. Don't get me wrong. It's my own stupidity, running last minute sales and making more work.)

2. Getting that last gift. I'm a through-the-year kind of shopper, and am generally done by the end of summer. But there are always gifts that I don't have until the last minute. Mostly this is because I put Sam in charge of gifts for the men in the family, and he puts it off until Christmas Eve, then says "did we ever get anything for..." That's when my head explodes and I sit at the computer and print off an online gift certificate. Nothing says "you're so special" like a piece of paper printed from home.

1. Santa Claus. Kids are terrified of him, yet write to him in hopes of getting the desires of their little hearts. He makes extra work in the buying and wrapping department for parents. And parents deal with the fallout when the fat guy in the red suit doesn't bring every last thing the kids ask for.

What's on your Top 10?

1 comment:

Flea said...

Several of mine are the same as yours. This year I added extra work hours. New babies in the family to shop for. Dental claims. Gah.