A Gracefull Place

I don’t know why, but I seem to not be able to really get with it for Christmas until about now.   I’m always about two weeks behind!   Maybe it has something to do with three birthdays in the first 12 days of November and the recovery time from all that…I don’t know! 

I met with a friend for coffee (well, latte’!) and we spent a wonderful hour just visiting and agreeing that we needed two more weeks!!!  Before I met with her, I thought I could be home by 5:00 and get this and that and the other thing done…but there is too much of that!  I think we all need to just take a little time for a chat with a friend.  I felt like I finally woke up–with only 12 days until Christmas!  (Well, 11 1/2 now!)

I have all this sewing I want to get done, but we still want to finish decorating the house.  We got the tree done the week after Thanksgiving, but everyone’s been so busy that we haven’t taken the time to get the rest of the stuff out.     Sew–I mean so–we’re taking a break from the machines and seeing what we can get done tonight, and finish the rest in the morning.    We’ll put on some Christmas music (probably Elegant Christmas by Elegant Music–their arrangement of Troika is one of our favorites!) and maybe even have some hot chocolate!  Oh, I forgot.  We’re out.  Um…think they’d mind spiced chai?! 

The past few days have been quite stressful.  Oh, not fighting crowds and traffic, as I’ve done most of my shopping at the click of a mouse, but coordinating 7 Christmas lists is always quite daunting!  (The boys are at the mercy of what my husband and I deem appropriate for them.  Next year the now 3 year old will probably understand and have his own "Christmas list"!)   Especially when you find out the tripled star items are either unavailable at this time or backordered until April of ’08!      I also had to call Paperwishes’ 24 hour customer service number to see if I had actually submitted the order, only to find out that "24 hour customer service" has been outsourced, like so many things are, and the best they could do is take a message and have someone call me in the morning!  (Of course they’re on Pacific time, so that meant about noon today!)   Oh, by the way, I did place the order.  How could I not know?  For one, there was no e-mail confirmation.  For two, I was trying to get this done without anyone seeing it–which is quite a feat since the computer is in the family/dining area, and although everyone was happily on the other side of the house, their "radar" kicked in and all of a sudden they needed my advice on projects or needed my assistance on something (like refereeing), or….you name it!  So, in the rush of trying to accomplish the most before being seen, I must have closed it out before printing my receipt/confirmation! 

Well, at least I didn’t have to pay express shipping (yet)!  I had to do that one year for most of my orders, because everyone moved up their dates from the year before, or I didn’t read the small print under "Delivery guaranteed by Dec. 24".  Small print reads: extra shipping costs may apply.  I read small print now! 

So I can say most of my shopping is done.  Still have some stocking stuffers to get–although I don’t know why I bother.  By the time I get to put my stuffers in, the stockings are stuffed from the other stuffors stuffing in their stuff!

And there’s still my husband….at least his list isn’t so hard.   Just a few items.  Nothing triple starred.  Simple.   About the only thing that is! 

Time to find out if everyone’s done with their chores so we can get at least a little decorating done.  Then maybe it will feel a bit more like Christmas.   And somehow I’ve got to break the news to dear, dear laid back husband that his sweet, sweet 3 year old son pulled the towel bar sort of off the wall in the upstairs bathroom.   And sort of pulled some of the wall with it.  I guess it lasted almost a year before something had to happen in the new addition!  Maybe we can decorate around it….a garland maybe?

Think I’ll go bake some cookies for the troops! 

Trisch

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Smiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.