This happens to me ever year – it gets to be 12 or so days before Christmas, and I’m suddenly launched into a panic about all the things I haven’t done yet. Like mail out Christmas cards or bake any cookies or, you know, BUY THE KIDS THEIR GIFTS.

It’s not like it happens at the same time every year and there are TV commercials and signs on store windows and reminders everywhere I turn that Christmas is coming or anything.

I would like to spend the entire month of December doing nothing but Christmas-related stuff.  I wish my brain wasn’t occupied with pesky thoughts like how many bills we have to pay and how I’ve had a Holiday Savings Account at the Credit Union since before Ryan was born and have never once put any money in it.

I want the picture-perfect Christmas. I want cookies and candy canes and Christmas carols and to wear silly fuzzy sweaters with reindeer on them. I want to visit relatives with tins of fudge and drive around looking at Christmas decorations. (We actually did that the other night, I just remembered. We drove through a huge neighborhood and found exactly five houses with any kind of lights. Most houses here in Lansing? No decorations at all.)

I want December to be about something other than scrambling to pay bills and get a bazillion product reviews and giveaways posted.  I want it to be about Christmas CHEER and whatever.   Is that unrealistic? Have Christmas specials on TV and decorating articles in Better Homes & Gardens given me unrealistic expectations?  I’d like to think not.

You know me and big pronouncements, I tend to say I’m going to do things and then not follow through. Although I did say I was going to lose weight and I am, so maybe I’m finally changing for the better.  Anyway, I’m opening my Google Calendar and making a note for next December.  Cookie baking and gift delivering and card sending and fuzzy sweater wearing, dammit, I am going to ENJOY CHRISTMAS next year.

As for this year – if you want me to send you a holiday card, I won’t promise it will get there before Christmas, or have a photo of my kids in it, but if you’d like a holiday greeting from me, please email me your address to table4five (at) gmail (dot) com. I promise your addresses will not be shared with anyone.