Whew!  If you’re reading this, you are still alive after one of the most stressful weeks of the year.

This was the week I wished I could have avoided going to the grocery store, but couldn’t. There were so many people there, you had to take a number to get a basket. (I’m joking.)  It was a major social event, nonetheless.  I saw lots of old friends, and made lots of new friends, too.

I got to know one man pretty well after I asked him if he had ever fried a turkey. I learned a lot about frying turkeys.  Passersby would add their bits of wisdom on their way to Aisle 9.  In the end I had learned we didn’t have all the right stuff to do it, so on Christmas eve we were scrambling trying to borrow it all.  Typical … we had all year to worry about this one meal, and we’re scrambling on Christmas eve to find the stuff to cook it with.

I made even more friends in the checkout line.  It was a long line.

This was the week of baking and delivering. I baked these cute little muffin things for “friend” gifts and of course this was the day it started raining. By the time the first bundle was delivered, they were all a gooey mess.  I sent my teenage daughter out that night to deliver several more, and not one person was home.

At one house, she went into the garage and was going to leave them at the back door, but noticed cats hanging around.  So she tried the back door, and after finding it unlocked, slipped the bag into the kitchen.  In slipped one of the cats, too.  Well, she couldn’t leave the cat inside these people’s house, so in she went, chasing this dern cat all over the house, but you know how fast cats can be if they don’t want to be caught.  She was terrified that our friends would drive up and find her huffing and puffing in their living room.  She finally caught the cat and made a quick getaway.

This was the week of realizing that I had too much stuff for one kid, so felt I had to go buy more stuff for the other ones to even it out.  It’s called panic purchasing. The kids love it, and the stores make a killing off people like me.

This was the week of running out of Christmas paper on Christmas eve.  I started looking for Happy Birthday paper that had red or green on it. White anniversary paper with a green bow wasn’t bad. Paper sacks were looking pretty good. So was newspaper. Anything but making one more trip to the store. You could hear my cry of agony for miles.

Christmas was a joyous day. It was all worth it. I can’t wait ’til next year. My husband thinks I’m crazy.