I Am Completely Unprepared

I’ve been so busy bah-humbuging the early arrival of the holidays, that it suddenly occurred to me that it’s almost the holidays. And I’m completely unprepared!!!It’s one thing to decide to forgo the holiday décor. After all, we’ve just purchased the Hayley House – it’s too much to decide how we’re going to (afford to) decorate it for 2009. But to find myself this unprepared for the holidays is simply out of character!I normally maintain a list with names and the gifts I plan to purchase. I start this list January 3rd and shop all year long.You might say that I’m Santa’s North Texas Girl Friday.

So by now, I should have a nice stack of presents ready to go!

Alas, the cupboard (and more importantly, the gift drawer) is mostly bare and I find myself facing the horror of Shopping During The Holidays.

I don’t understand the appeal of fighting for parking spaces, throwing punches over the year’s hot toys and praying that FedEx will make it before heading to the relatives. Long ago I realized that the best way to enjoy the holidays was to finish shopping in early November and spend the rest of the season driving around looking at Christmas lights, sipping on a Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate (no whip).

But this year, it’s all about the whip – not whipped cream on a peppermint hot chocolate – but the whipping I’m going to endure as I try to get our Christmas shopping finished.

In the meantime, I’ve had some really super ideas for fun gifts to make and share with friends and coworkers. So I’m on the lookout for some things (other than my sanity, of course!).

I need some empty glass containers (pasta sauce and the like):

And I need some wide-mouth half-pint mason jars. These babies are really hard to find:
Hopefully I’ll be able to pull all of this together by the end of December.

If not, you’ll find me dressed in my festive holiday straight-jacket, sitting with a cookbook, double-sided sticky tape, wrapping paper and a shopping list.