Christmas Eve is on December 24th, I think

I took a crack at myself back in January by saying it takes a rare talent to break all of your New Year's resolutions in the first week of the year, and I'm going to take another crack at myself here in December even though it does not require any special talents to forget what day it is; however, it does take an absurd amount of stupidity to not realize that it is Christmas Eve when you have 30 people coming for dinner that night.

Yes, you read that right. I forgot it was Christmas Eve on Wednesday and it didn't occur to me until my husband phoned home from work at 3:00 to see if I wanted him to pick up anything from the grocery store on his way home. I had 3 hours to clean the house I had ignored all month, get a shower, and decorate for my family's annual Christmas Eve party at 6:00.

And don't let me confuse you, I did not forget that I invited 30 people over for dinner on Christmas Eve, I just didn't realize that Wednesday was Christmas Eve, I thought it was on Thursday. I thought I had a whole day off work to get ready for a party taking place the next day. Like I said, an absurd amount of stupidity is required.

After talking to Jon and enduring the anger and frustration that violently radiated from him through the telephone line to me, and quickly rattling off a very short grocery list (which I had planned to pick up later that night for the party tomorrow) I kicked it into high gear and began frantically cleaning, running from here to there with what felt like lightning speed, and then quickly showering and blow-drying and straightening my hair, and throwing clothes in the washer so I wouldn't be forced to wear the dingy workout pants and sweatshirt I'd had on all day. I lit candles, turned on the tree lights, set up random Christmas decorations and I was finally ready.

I'd pulled a party together in 3 hours. I even had a spare 15 minutes to sit by the fire and flip through Christmas specials on the television before people began arriving. I did it, but I will probably never live it down.

Absent Minded

The past 2 weeks have kicked my butt. At any given time you could find me in one of the 4 following places:

1) At work. That's a given.

2) At my dining room table doing more work. Working overtime at home is convenient but I don't think I've ever been in my dining room for 3 hours straight until last night.

3) At Target. I'm the one standing in the middle of the main aisles looking like she's about to cry. Gift shopping has never been this hard for me before, my creative juices have usually kicked in by now. Finding something for anyone has been extremely difficult this year. I don't know if it's me being too picky or that there just isn't the same selection as there has been in years past, but I've bought and returned 3 gifts already (one within 24 hours of buying it and the sales clerk was sure to razz me for it). I've decided I'm waking up extra early tomorrow to head out into the madness and finish this once and for all. I'm just not sure how I'm going to do that.

4) In bed. A girl needs her sleep and right now I feel like I can't get enough of it.

On the bright side, our Christmas tree is finished. I successfully merged my "fancy" tree with his "family" tree and came away with the most beautiful tree I have ever decorated. 

I kept the white lights, added red beads, and hung all of our homemade and keepsake ornaments (yes, even Montgomery Moose), and topped it off with a bow. It's simple, yet somehow elegant.

What's with all the bomber jackets?

Me: "Hey, while we're here, do you mind if I look for a winter coat? I don't have one that fits."

Jon: "Sure, but I can already tell they don't have anything that looks like you. See? This one looks like your little sister and your nieces. This one looks like something your grandmother would like. Oh, and this one looks like...no, that's just plain ugly."

Me: "Do you see that girl over there, the one wearing the short blue peacoat? That's what I'm looking for."

Jon: "You mean something that screams 'I listen to Death Cab for Cutie and wish I was invisible'? Yeah, that's totally you, but they don't have anything like that here."

Ba Humbug 2008

Jon and I kept making tentative plans for putting up the Christmas tree but they kept falling through, mostly because he's too busy with work and exhausted by the time he gets home, and because I'm just not particularly interested in dealing with it this year. For the first time in my life I actually contemplated not having a Christmas tree and I was perfectly okay with that. Odd.

I suspect it's due to one or more of the following reasons:

1.) Decorating for Christmas brings out the worst of my obsessive compulsive tendencies. I've been working very hard to stave my self-diagnosed OCD and I think I've done incredibly well, but just thinking about watching Jon put the lights on the tree and not weaving them in and out of the branches to get perfect coverage and even spacing was making my blood boil. I know that sounds terrible, and like I said, I'm working on it, but a constant need for perfection has been very hard to break.

2.) There isn't much money to go around for gift-giving. Everyone is feeling the crunch and it just means that I have to be that much more creative with my gift ideas this year, but I feel so incredibly cheap, and non-creative.

3.) Christmas equals winter and I'm hating winter more than ever this year. I'm constantly cold, and it feels like I'm constantly driving in crappy weather. I have to get over this fear of driving in snow if I'm going to survive this winter, but I keep waiting for/expecting the bottom to drop out. I'm not allowed to be this satisfied in life (with everything but the Christmas tree) and since I am so satisfied, something terrible is going to happen, like losing control of my car, swerving into on-coming traffic, and facing death, which two women have already done this year on one of the main roads I take to and from work.

Anyway, plans didn't fall through tonight. Jon and I got the bare tree up, and I walked out of the room as he put on the lights. It looks okay. Unfortunately, I couldn't decide where to go from there so that's as far as we got. I guess the important thing is that it's started, and now that it's started I'll inevitably finish within a few days.

Don't believe the pie

For those of you who are just dying to know (yeah, right)--yes, I did eat the world's most sugary apple pie for breakfast and I enjoyed every bite of it. The only problem was I had been expecting an early sugar high and then sharp drop a few hours later, but what I actually got was an instant downer. Who knew so much processed sugar would do nothing for me nutritionally? Oh, yeah, I did, but I was so sweet on that apple pie that I actually believed the lies she told me.

Hah. Okay. Yeah. I have been completely lethargic all day. I should have been in bed 46 minutes ago and I am moments away from thumping my head on the desk so I've got to get some sleep.

Tomorrow breakfast will consist of hearty oatmeal, and then I swear I'll be able to put a coherent thought together.

Why when I say 'I don't want any left overs' I should really mean it

You wouldn't know it from my silence, but I've actually got plenty of blog fodder dating all the way back to mid-November, and now that I'm not frantically cleaning and readying the house for a Thanksgiving dinner for 26 people I should, by all means, have the time to write some of it down, but in true Kate fashion something else has caught my attention.

I say "something else" like it's no big deal, but this particular "something else" has me ranting and raving and for the life of me, I can't get it out of my head. You see, there's this deep dish apple pie in my refrigerator and she's calling my name. She's slowly and seductively chanting the reasons I should eat her and it's all to the beat of my own heart.

baked apples...

sweet syrup...

sugary crumbles...

flaky crust...

Every time I say NO, she says YES, and I'm having a really hard time concentrating with all of this noise. And as if that wasn't bad enough, I wake up each morning to a single plate on the counter top with evidence that part of her was heated up and topped with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Apparently, she's having a late night affair with my husband. I can almost feel her smirking behind my back.

Sure, sure, one slice of apple pie won't hurt me, but I'm having a hard time justifying it when I spent the weekend gorging on pumpkin pie and cool whip.

But have no fear--I've decided to get it over with already, so I'm going to eat the wench for breakfast tomorrow, then maybe we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.