It's always around this time of year, when Christmas is right around the corner--barreling towards me like a one-horse open sleigh pulled by a drunken Clydesdale with rabies--that I think to myself, "Huh, I should probably do some Christmas shopping."
I do this every year. Each and every year. Each and every single year that I've been alive minus the ones where I wasn't expected to give anyone gifts because I was too young. When they say youth is wasted on the young I think that's specifically what they're referring to. Gift forgiveness.
And in case you're wondering, I did not just return home from a tour of duty, come up for parole or wake up in a bathtub full of ice with my internal organs removed and a note that says go to the hospital.
I have no good excuse for waiting this long other than it's what I do every year. It's my thing. Being completely horrible at time management and in denial of the way annual holidays work is my thing. And on a smaller scale, being in denial of monthly occurrences is also my thing. This is an overshare--consider it a special holiday overshare--but I'm the woman buying feminine products every single month while also thinking, "I should really be buying these ahead of time. It's not as if I wasn't expecting this."
But back to Christmas shopping, based on the number of stressed out, irritable people I see at the stores, acting as if this holiday was thrust upon us out of the blue, as if we haven't been seeing Christmas decorations since what feels like the summer, tons of us are terrible at time management! It's not just my thing, it's our thing.
Of course there are exceptions. You might be one of those overachievers who got your shopping done early, who is now sipping mulled cider out of a festive seasonal mug, watching It's a Wonderful Life and cherishing your loved ones as opposed to resenting them.
You're probably also one of those people who wraps gifts really well and folds over all the edges and smoothes the paper and sticks decorative doodads like pine cones and candy canes into the bows. I bet you have a wrapping room or a wrapping closet or at the very least a dedicated spot for all your gift wrap items.
I have some gift wrap floating around my car and when I give someone a present it looks like a cat vomited wrapping paper onto the box and a three-year-old got into the tape.
And somehow I'm always throwing out my back while trying to wrap gifts. I don't know where the correct spot to wrap them is but I know where it isn't--hunched over in a corner somewhere, on the ground, sweating, hoping no one walks in. Another terrible place to wrap gifts is on your bed because you're likely to cut right through your bedspread.
Clearly I need some kind of stand up crafting table. I'm definitely going to add that to my plans for the dream house which includes an ice skating rink and a salad bar.
I keep hoping one day I will be one of the organized, decorative-doodad-using, mulled-cider-sipping, type A people but I just don't know if I have it in me. I'm too comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to hit the mall and then climb under my desk to wrap some gifts.