Holiday brain

Let's just pretend the last week or so of not posting didn't happen, OK? Things just start blurring all together around the holidays for me. I get all frenetic about deciding on gifts and wrapping and holiday menus and the perfect Christmas music mix and snapping a good picture for the Christmas cards, oh and what about holiday stamps, we can't send out Christmas cards with flag stamps, and oh crap the girls have dresses but don't have any tights, I really don't want to have to buy tights, but oh look, Andre's brother just sent the exact same gift to Andre that I got for him so I have to go to Target anyway and exchange my present. And we don't have a wreath yet, what's Christmas without a wreath? And I haven't made any Christmas cookies yet. And the house is still a mess from the Thanksgiving houseguests and my general lack of housekeeping skills. Oh and Amelia not only doesn't have tights, she doesn't have shoes! And I think Fiona's already outgrown her Christmas shoes even though I just bought them a month and a half ago. You see what planning ahead gets you?

So anyway, I can't seem to focus much. I think it's because I've been trained to believe that the holidays are the time for sitting around in your pajamas all day, eating Christmas cookies and watching TV. School was out and we didn't usually travel over the holidays so Tamara and I spent our time searching the house for our presents and coming up with reasonable lies to tell about how long we practiced the piano while mom and dad were at work. Man I miss those days. Now I have all the holiday preparations to do, but also all of the holiday listlessness. I have to figure out what ingredients I need to make cookies! But I think I'll just sit here in my pajamas for a while. I have to go to the store to buy stocking stuffers! But we taped Rudolph and I haven't seen that for awhile. What in the name of sweet Jesus can I get for my dad for Christmas?! I don't know, I'll think about it after I read a couple of chapters of my book.