Dear Christmas

Dear Christmas,

Slow your f*cking roll. I am losing my Santadamn mind over here. I have a matter of days to do the following:

Get a tree.

Decorate the tree.

Redecorate the tree after the kids “help.”

Deal with this mofo and all his too-small-for-anything boxes. 24 of them.

Prepare to host Friendsgiving, which we didn’t have our act together enough to host in November, but I love it and obviously we’ll have our act together so much better in December.

Find 1982 office party outfit for 1982 office party themed Friendsgiving.

Finish buying books for my 24 Books of December Project, because filling a jerk-Santa’s microscopic boxes with tiny wonders of magic was not a big enough challenge for me and Pinterest has ruined my life.

Get a birthday present for Cristina Isabel, our sponsor child from the Philippines. That’s right, her birthday’s around the same time as Baby Jesus’s.

Assuage Matty’s suspicions that Cristina Isabel doesn’t exist since they “haven’t sent us a new photo of her in four years.”

Come up with an idea for our holiday cards. The bar is quite high, if I do say so myself.

Shoot our holiday card photo and beg my forever work husband Jonah to photoshop it for us. (I’ll never let you go, Jonah!)

Address a billion envelopes. Lick a billion stamps without getting Susan’ed.

Wrap the teachers’ gifts without getting another ceramic shard from the grey sloth mug inserted into my finger. (Those were not words the children should’ve heard.)

Get presents for all my relatives, including my Dad, who wants nothing. Mail them in a timely fashion.

Edit and post George’s birthday interview. He turned seven in early October, but it appears my track record’s not that good with timely posting anyway.

Buy actual gifts for my kids, navigating my way through their highly unrealistic wishlists that include, Macbook Pros (no), iPhones (nope), a slime lab (hard pass), and Big League Chew (on it).

Create Christmas cheer at all times.

My feelings can best be expressed by my second favorite Christmas song: “Where are you Christmas? Why can’t I find you?” I’m assuming I can’t find you because I hid you in my “secret present place” and I will discover you sometime in mid-March. And also because we’ve lost touch with the “reason for the season.” The reason is drinking too much wine and staying up all December 24th wrapping presents whilst watching Love Actually and cursing Snape for giving his lovely wife a GD Joni Mitchell CD instead of the necklace that Mr. Bean painstakingly wrapped for Eyebrows McSlutty Employee girl, right? It’s either that or yelling at my kids that a fat bearded man is watching them at all times, so they better stop whining or he won’t slide down our chimney and bring them Big League Chew. That’d be a great Christmas carol.

In summary, let’s not expect me to wrap this all up with a pretty little bow, because I’m saving all my wrapping energy for Christmas eve, when there’s wine and the best Christmas song of all time.

a faithful soldier in the war on Christmas,

Natasha