Joy to the World!!

                                                   Joy to the World

                                                   I'm almost done

                                           Now I, can get, some sleep!

Yes folks, at 1AM this morning, that was the song I was sining because I had just finished up wrapping for the night.  I have only a couple more things to wrap before tomorrow,  and I would have gone ahead and finished it all up... but I was  missing the last couple of gifts that need to be wrapped.  I hid them in my car, and Hubby took my car to work last night.

I don't think I did too terribly bad as far as timing goes.  I started around 10:30PM, so I wrapped for two and a half hours.  Of course, now I'm praying to The Lord that the kids stay out of my room because trying to hide presents isn't going to happen.  I've done the best that I can, but not near as good as I'd like.  Thankfully, I've just got to get through the next two days.  

You see, if my kids were anything like me, then I wouldn't worry at all.  I absolutely LOVE surprises, so I'd never in a million years try and snoop to see what my gifts were.  I know that I have gifts hiding in my house somewhere at this very moment, but I have no desire to know what they are until I unwrap them Christmas morning.  My oldest two kids, on the other hand?  Yeah, not so sure they wouldn't be digging around in trash cans looking for any clues if they had half the chance.

Plus I have to worry about keeping Jelly out of my room so not to crush her dream of Santa coming.  She has no reason to snoop around, because she hasn't the slightest inkling that there's anything being hidden.  But, if she happens to accidentally stumble across what's currently stockpiled in my room, it would be extremely hard to try and explain.  

I kinda expected to be a lot more tired than I was when I was finished.  I mean, I spent two and a half hours on my bedroom floor wrapping gifts.  My back was killing me, but it didn't make me sleepy tired.  Around 9PM, I wondered if I was going to be able to stay up long enough to do what needed to be done.  I was getting pretty sleepy at that point, but I guess that feeling wore off.  Even after all the wrapping, I ended up staying up until after 2AM playing iPad games and watching sappy Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel.

Yesterday, I made the really smart decision to go grocery shopping.  I have decided that from this moment on, if I ever need to do grocery shopping so close to Christmas, I'm going to stay up late and do it during the middle of the night. I'd gladly sacrifice sleep for the sake of my sanity.  Walmart was absolute pandemonium at 2PM yesterday afternoon.  

I didn't even bother trying to find a close parking spot when I first got there, I just parked in the first spot I saw open.  Then, I fought my way through completely packed aisles trying to get where I needed to be.  I had taken Butter with me, so that he could help me pick out a gift for my dad.  I let him push the cart, because I figured he'd have a lesser urge to ram people out of the way than I would.  

After aimlessly walking around for what felt like hours (probably more like 30 minutes) coming up with absolutely NO idea what to get my dad, we gave up and focused on the grocery shopping.  Of course, once I was back in the car driving home I realized what I could get for my dad, but there was NO way I was driving back to the store.  I'll get it today.  Because I wasn't going to tackle that store again during daylight hours on a weekend until Christmas is over.  Maybe it won't be as bad today being that it's a weekday and people might still have to go to work.  

Grocery shopping was complete torture.  Trying to maneuver around all those people and carts was for the highly skilled and trained.  Something neither Butter nor I are.  We, meaning I, just did our best to keep our, meaning my, cool and get the grocery shopping done as quickly as possible.

We were in and out of there and on our way home after spending only 2 hours in the store.  Two.  Freaking.  Hours.

But, the worst is over, and now it should be pretty smooth sailing until Christmas.  

Today, I'm going to bake all the cookies that need to be baked for Santa.  For some reason, we have to bake about 3 to 6 dozen cookies for Christmas, even though Santa gets 3 cookies.  But, being that we usually don't get home until late Christmas Eve, I figured getting all the baking done the day before will help my time management for Christmas Eve and will help today go by faster.  I'm going to have to let the kids do the majority of the work, because I've somehow developed a little cold.  Nothing major, just a blocked up nose.  But just to be safe, I'm just going to explain what to do and let them handle all of the food preparation.

I'm hoping I can stay busy today.  I absolutely HATE Christmas Eve Eve.  Because I'm excited and ready for Christmas.  Christmas Eve is spent at P-Momma's and we enjoy the day so much that the day just flies by.  Then it's home and in bed early for Christmas Day.  But today will be long and drawn out just because I'm so excited about tomorrow, so I have to come up with stuff to occupy myself with.  I suppose baking is a good an activity as any to do just that.  Plus I have crocheting to do.  Plus I need to run to the store (AGAIN) and pick up my dad's gift.  Maybe, some time will be passed while wading through shoppers and waiting inline for at a check-out counter.

I woke up this morning at 5AM, and I really thought I wasn't going to get back to sleep.  Luckily, I did until 9AM.  But, that leaves me about fourteen hours to kill before taking myself to bed tonight.

OK, time for a coffee refill and coming up with something to do.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!!