A list of things I have not done for Christmas

1. sent out cards (yet)

2. wrapped everything (I have one gift left - ooops, 2)

3. finished the hat I was making for Lance (It's not so much that I failed to finish it. I have decided not to continue on it.) (BECAUSE IT SUCKS. THIS IS TERRIBLE WOOL TO MAKE A HAT OUT OF.) I am not as clever as I make myself out to be. I will apologize to Lance tomorrow.

4. Lance deserves a nice hat (not that he needs one, he has several, because he is a grown man and understands about getting cold.)

5. I myself do not understand about getting cold, though I am technically a grown woman, and am forever running from apartment to car, car to office, car to shop, car to school in a dreadfully underdressed state. I wore my crocs flipflops to the mall yesterday. [ITS A MALL, FOR GOD SAKE, ITS 80 DEGREES.] [until you have to walk around the overflowing parking lot looking for your car. Which is beige and subcompact. with your kid. who is freezing. just ask him - wait, don't ask him, he's already telling you. AND TELLING YOU. AND EVERYONE ELSE.]

Uh oh, I appear to have gone off track.

6. I did not print up cool artistic printable gift tags, which I thought I would get to. Instead, we wrote people's names in Sharpie on their presents. (On the paper. Not actually on the presents themselves.)

7. I did not talk to my son about Santa one way or another, except that when he asked, I launched into this long tale about the real Saint Nicolas until he drowned under all my verbiage and asked if we could listen to some music.

8. I did not give gifts to my co-workers. Most of my coworkers came across with a little something thoughtful for everyone. Not me, past queen of Christmas gifts.

9. I do not think I got anyone even one thing that they asked for for Christmas. Oh, wait, yes I did. Okay, I take that back.

10. I DID NOT F ANYTHING UP AT WORK TONIGHT. And neither did anyone else. There is no Christmas Tech Disaster to recount. It was a really wonderful service. Which gives me mixed feelings {like every other f-ing thing on the earth and especially} like everything having to do with my job aptitude and performance over the past year-and-a-half.

11. I did not bake my son a birthday cake, nor did I get him the traditional Baskin Robbins cake. We pushed his party into January, as so many of his friends were tied up for Christmas on his actual birthday.

12. I did not go to midnight mass at some little stone church with a boy's choir and a churchbell, as I threaten to do every year, since our service is early enough that it would actually be possible. Instead, we sat around and watched It's a Wonderful Life and then It's a Fabulous Graham Norton. And texted people Merry Christmas.