Let me just say, for those people who have never tried blogging: It can be SO GOOD when it comes to a) motivating yourself to DO SOMETHING and b) finding lovely people who understand and commiserate and support. Yesterday’s fretful post really helped get my rear into gear, and every comment that came in felt like a warm hug. Thank you. Let’s do some gift-fret-free bullets, shall we?

It’s Beginning to Look a Teeny Weeny Bit Like Christmas: After yesterday’s post, I very firmly told my husband that we needed to finalize the gifts now. And then I proved to him, using the UPS cost estimation feature, that it would cost us three times as much in shipping costs to wait for amazon to deliver some items vs me going to an actual store and buying them and shipping them now. That turned out to be highly persuasive. We ended up getting both my MIL and my SIL some cozy pajamas. (After so many comments in favor, I wanted – badly – to get them each a towel warmer, but it wasn’t going to work with shipping to me and then wrapping and shipping to them. Then I thought, if I can’t get a towel warmer for my MIL and SIL, perhaps I can get one for my husband and/or child?!?! But our bathroom is really, really not conducive to having a towel warmer in it, so I am going to postpone that idea for another day.) Despite my many misgivings – we Santa got Carla the Uggs that are apparently this year’s Stanley tumbler/Kendra Scott necklace/Lululemon belt bag. I was able to march right over to the mall yesterday morning and buy everything right there. I also marched right over to the bookstore and bought the books that we had been dithering on ordering for several other gift recipients; one of the books was out of stock locally, but I pushed right through that little obstacle and bought an alternative. 

Mail Call: I also addressed, stuffed, stamped and MAILED my holiday cards. Did I think I had ordered twenty more cards than I actually did? Yes. But no matter. I think I got everyone on the list. I had to go to the post office to acquire more stamps, and then stood there and stamped the remaining sixty or so stampless cards. While I was stamping, an older-than-me-but-not-demonstrably-elderly man came in, mailed something, and then started chatting at me. He wanted to know what I was mailing – both he and the postal worker first assumed “wedding invitations” which strikes me as slightly odd given the timing and also my advanced age, not that a person has to be the picture of youth to plan a wedding – and then told me how he had mailed sixty holiday cards just days before, and how a long line had piled up behind him because you can only slide two or three cards at a time through the mail slot. I kept waiting for him to tell me the punch line – that someone behind him finally pointed out he could open the little door beneath the slot and put in the whole stack – but he didn’t. I debated telling him myself – for future reference – but he went on to chat at me about how many fewer cards he sends these days than in the past, and then enumerated the (all sad) reasons, so it felt as though the moment had passed. This story doesn’t have any sort of moral; I just love it when people talk to me and I can just smile and nod. (Is this what it feels like to be Nicole????)

Surprise and Suspicion at the Post Office: I had heard (perhaps from you???) that some mail carriers aren’t accepting any mail at all that’s headed to Canada. So I was prepared to be told “no” when I requested some stamps for my Canadian card recipients. Instead, the postal worker said she didn’t see why a couple of small letters wouldn’t get through. Packages, no; definitely not. But a little ol’ holiday card? That was sure to sneak by! Then she sold me some stamps and I left the post office feeling very confused. I am 100% sure I don’t understand Canada’s mail strike that well, but Wikipedia tells me that Canada Post has requested that other countries stop sending mail to Canada at all. “Mail at all” has got to include holiday cards, right? So… I’m reluctant to put my cards in the mail, is what I’m saying. I am tempted… but if I did… what would happen to them?!?!

Cookie Swap, Anyone?: I realize that I mentioned the idea of having a blogland cookie swap, and then even made cookies, and then got so caught up in gift panic that I forgot all about it. But I would still like to do it! So: if YOU are interested in doing a blogland cookie swap (even if you don’t have a blog!)!!!! Please send a link to your cookie post and/or photos of your cookies to lifeofadoctorswife [at] gmail by midnight Eastern time on 12/20, and I will add a link to your blog and/or your photos to a post I will post BEFORE CHRISTMAS. I am happy to include any information you care to share about your cookies. A deadline of 12/20 should give me time to make MORE cookies. In addition to human cookies, by the way, Carla and I are planning to also make cookies for dogs. So that will be… something. 

Let’s Wrap Things Up: In addition to finalizing my gift purchases and mailing the holiday cards, I have been wrapping gifts for the out-of-state relatives. I hate wrapping gifts. It is The Worst. I am not good at it – it requires an ability to cut straight lines, for one thing, and I do not have that ability. Unfortunately, my mother has inculcated in me the firm – no, the intense – belief that wrapping adds to the specialness of the gift receiving experience. As though the beauty of the gift wrap corresponds with the amount of love you feel for the person upon whom you are bestowing the gift. “I love you so much I will make bows out of flimsy paper.” Every time I wrap a gift, I try to do so with love in my heart. Love for the gift recipient, not for the scissors or the tape or the goddamn wrapping paper that never cuts straight. I try to make it as beautiful as I can because I feel like that helps add to the joy and anticipation of the gift portion of the holiday. And yet. When I am mailing so many gifts, I am well aware that the gift wrap is likely going to tear and the bows will get smushed and the whole effect is going to be less stunning than I want it to be and the people who receive these crumpled and ripped gifts are going to think I don’t love them at all. Anyway. I hate wrapping. It is stupid and wasteful and yet it is an essential facet of the gift exchange process and I CANNOT QUIT. 

I have still not decorated anything at all! Perhaps that will change TODAY.