It’s a big weekend for Christmas procrastinators
We don’t get much more into the Christmas season than we are right now.
It’s Dec. 16. We are in the eye of the snow globe. So, if you don’t have your cookies baked, trees trimmed, halls decked, eggs nogged and wassail wassailed, well, you are an idiot like me.
I’m a slow starter on the Christmas spirit. I’m a Christmas procrastinator.
The expression “What are you waiting for, Christmas?” is completely ineffective on me because, no, no I’m not really waiting for Christmas at all. Apparently, the looming of Dec. 25 does very little to spark me into action.
I think I’m a slow Christmasser because I don’t really, fully understand it and when I don’t understand something, I ignore it.
I have emails dating back to 2007 that I think I’ll reply to some day but just haven’t gotten around to. Not because they are unimportant but because I just haven’t decided how to respond. So they sit in limbo. Some people respond to messages like they’re Serena Williams. I fire a text to my wife and she has that thing zinging back to my court before I can even put my phone down. She’s so fast she almost interrupts me. “Need anything at the st …” “Pitas!” I have much indecision to reckon with at the holidays so I deal with it by not dealing with it. I have questions — many questions — so I push them to the back of my mind and hope they will vanish.
Gift giving, for example, is a huge unknown for me. What do I give? Who do I give to? How much do I spend? And, most importantly, what do I do about my wife?
There’s no clear answer because some years we buy each other a gift and some years we choose to save our money and most years neither of us is sure whether this is a buy gifts year or not. This leads to situations like, “Oh, wow. A drone. You shouldn’t have. I got you … I made coffee!”
This year my wife and I decided, I think, to not buy each other gifts because we might be looking to go on vacation later this winter. This is perfect except I’m not really sure I can truly get away with buying nothing. And just yesterday she was looking at the flyers and dropping subtle hints like, “Hey, the Kitchen Aid mixer is on sale for $300 off !”
Now, this excited tone seems like a clear hint except for a few factors including the fact that we have been married for 20.5 years and she has baked cookies exactly one time and it happened to be Tuesday. Her wanting a Kitchen Aid mixer after one batch of shortbread would be like me asking for a brand new precision ratchet set because I just successfully tightened a screw on the cupboard door with a butter knife.
So I don’t know if I should buy something or not buy something and if I do buy something should it be small like socks or big like a fireplace TV stand or maybe somewhere in the middle like socks with a funny message on them like “If You Can Read This, Bring Me Wine”? I don’t know what to do so I will do nothing … for now. Also what does it say about me that a “big” gift is a fireplace TV stand and not, I don’t know, a BMW or a hunting falcon or something fancy like that? So many questions. And what about me? What about my Christmas list? Well, the only thing that isn’t in question is that Christmas is coming and it’s coming fast. And what would be the greatest gift this Christmas? I would love for someone to just tell me to relax, stop stressing, enjoy a little time off work spent with family and friends, and let your worries wash away on a wave of nog.