The Season of Giving: I got something for you RIGHT HERE

I am days away from buying a plane ticket and just getting the hell out of here.
Who's with me?

The holidays leave me exhausted, because people want a lot of you during the holidays. I don't know why - you would think the grownups could all just sit down with a box of wine and some leftover goldfish crackers, and agree that between the months of October and January we need to avoid planning any major events, and just hold it together and BE COOL.

It isn't even Thanksgiving, and already requests for donations of time, money, energy, and gifts are piling up. And I'm no Rockefeller, if you know what I'm saying. I'm not gliding off to the Metropolitan Tree Lighting on the West Lawn with Bernard and Muffy. This is just your average, run-of-the-mill suburban mom stuff. Don't even get me started on the December birthday parties. My son's birthday is 10 days before Christmas, so I know what I am talking about.

I tried to get them to induce me in November but NO. Something about due dates and "letting your body tell you when it's ready" (which, for the record NEVER HAPPENED and they finally had to go in there and pull this almost 10 pound baby out by one leg while he protested mightily at being disturbed because obviously he was HIBERNATING). Those midwives wanted to make sure they ruined every December FOREVER. It's not just that it sucks to have your birthday right before Christmas because then you inevitably get people sending one package for both your birthday AND Christmas - it's that no one is around to go to your damn birthday party because they have that pageant/craft fair/thing for work/flight home for the holidays. I can't imagine it will be better when he's an adult - I will never see him on his birthday, because he'll tell me he's going to see me "next week anyway, Ma" or "The flights are astronomical this time of year".

I'm getting ahead of myself, I know, Forgive me but that is the state I am in, where not only am I worried about everything I have to do in the next 7 weeks, but I am also beside myself with worry about how I am going to manage every holiday season from now until the end of time.
They can't all be like this.
They must NOT be like this.
Have a goldfish cracker.
(*crunch crunch crunch*)

I know, I know.......I don't have to worry about his flights yet - for now, he's still under our roof and the entire month of December is a toy orgy of the first order. It's not my doing, IT'S EVERYONE ELSE. The packages and boxes start arriving the week after Thanksgiving, and sometimes they don't stop until January. I have a habit of buying gifts that will be "perfect" all year long, and saving them. I have stuff hidden in my attic for at least 10 months out of the year Sometimes longer, because I'll forget about it and then find it the following April. When he asks for something, telling him "your birthday is coming" is met with a dark look, because his birthday isn't coming until the week before Christmas, dammit.

Then there's work - all 3 jobs are chipping away at my day until there is just nothing left. Today I actually told a client over the phone that I just couldn't help her anymore. I just couldn't do it. I had a baby vomiting in one arm, I had the cell phone wedged between my clenched jaw and my (very tense) shoulder and my desk phone on speaker while I was parked on hold for 27 minutes trying to pay the mortgage because the bank's website was down. I was staring at a pile of laundry, and wondering when the last time was that I had eaten.

It was yesterday, it turns out. I haven't had the time. WHO HAS THE TIME TO EAT? AFTER WORK YOU HAVE TO GO PICK UP DONATIONS AND MAKE THOSE PHONE CALLS AND SEND THAT EMAIL AND GET TO THE FITTING FOR THE CHARITY FASHION SHOW AND BAKE THE COOKIES AND SIGN UP FOR THE COMMITTEE AND PICK A SHIFT TO WORK THE BOOTH AT THE FUNDRAISER AND DRIVE CAR POOL AND PACK LUNCHES AND WAS TODAY THE FIELD TRIP AND OH MYGOD THE BABY JUST PUKED ON THE RUG.

It's just.....it's a lot! And some parents just seem to breeze through it all, with not a hair out of place. "What's the problem?" you can see them thinking as you drive off with your tailgate still open and a lunchbox on the roof. The problem? They are the problem, actually. They make it worse. They make me feel like I should be doing it better, when I am already doing the very best that I can. Don't send me your fucking homemade christmas cards that you stamped with cut up potatoes and sprinkled with fucking glitter and addressed in calligraphy in front of a roaring fire. I hate glitter you asshole. And while we're at it, don't buy your kid some huge, stupidly expensive and unnecessary gift for the holiday - why make it hard on the rest of us? It's not a fucking contest.

But if it was, I would totally win. Because I have taken a few minutes and planned out the whole damn season down to the bikini wax appointments.
I scheduled those first, actually.
Priorities, you know.