Are you ready?

For Christmas, that is.  I was at the store the other day and the clerk asked, “Are you ready for Christmas?”

I know she was just trying to be nice, but I wanted to reach across and throttle her.  No, I’m not ready.  No, I’m never ready.  I’ll still be wrapping presents on Christmas Eve night.

You can bet that people who ask “Are you ready?” are already done, have no children, and are the same people who say “Have a nice day!” all the time.  I say if they are through with all their shopping by Thanksgiving, they ought to be thrown in jail for making the rest of us look so bad.

But this year is even worse for me.  Now, keep in mind we moved over Thanksgiving weekend.  I was concerned with having furniture to sit on and beds to sleep in.  My son (Father Christmas himself), however, was more concerned with how the move would affect Christmas, and in particular, Christmas decorating.

The day after we moved, I was still looking for towels and soap, and he wanted to go buy a Christmas tree.

The following week, I was still too tired to cook, and he was anxious to get the house decorated.  Most people would not have attempted to move and put up decorations in the same month, but they don’t live with Father Christmas.  Needless to say, the tree’s up, looks great, and the house is trimmed.  I’m glad Father Christmas was here to make me do it.  It feels like home already.

But now there’s that little problem with gifts.  A few days ago, my son looked wistfully at the tree and voiced his growing concern that there were no gifts beneath it.  I followed his gaze and saw the three poinsettias I had put there so it wouldn’t be completely bare.  Okay, it was pretty, but also pretty sad.

Buying the gifts is only half of it … wrapping them all takes just as long.  If, by some chance, I purchased anything early, it certainly didn’t get wrapped early.  The longer I put it off, the more there are to wrap, and the more enormous the task seems.  So, I put if off even more.  I love stores that wrap the gifts for me.  But since I hadn’t had time to do any shopping since the move, there weren’t any wrapped gifts.

My son seemed to sense my mood and offered to do some wrapping, which for a guy is a pretty big offer.  Anything to get some pretty bundles under the tree.  My mood lifted. 

The next problem was finding the presents I had hidden before we moved and were now hopelessly lost in the mountain of boxes in the garage.  I finally found some (but who knows if I found them all … I have such a terrible memory!)  We have a few gifts beneath the tree now.

Now if I can figure out a way for someone to do the grocery shopping and the Christmas cooking, I’ll be in pretty good shape. 

I’m looking forward to the week ahead full of family, friends, fires in the fireplace, and remembering the reason for the season.

If you see me, though, just don’t ask if I’m “ready”.  And I promise not to ask you.