Making A List...

Last year at this time I had 90% of my holiday shopping done and I felt great...this year I have 0% done and I'm starting to panic!  The holiday season is always accompanied by a sense of urgency that begins the first time I see some sort of Christmas decoration set up in a store.  I swear that The Wal-Mart had X-mas up before Halloween, which has increased my panic/annoyance about my lack of holiday preparedness!  And then some house down the street put up one of those giant plastic yard snow globes with Santa Claus inside it...right next to their blow up lawn Turkey!  Classy!

So I've made my holiday shopping list, figured out exactly who needs/wants what, and where I'll be purchasing said items.  When you live in O-Town, holiday shopping isn't as simple as a Saturday running around to various stores...we have 1 store and I get a headache going inside it..TWM (The Wal-Mart).  So I started checking some items off my list via online shopping, am taking a girlfriends X-Mas shopping trip this upcoming weekend, and will attempt to get the rest of the small stuff done here and there...The kidlet's made their Santa List (insert eye roll from TJ) and it's all fairly predictable...dolls/Barbies/coloring stuff for Finny; WWE, Spy car for Beau; Ipod touch and XBox games for TJ.  Thankfully Beau and Finny have no clue their items cost 1/3 the price of their brother's...and I'm not sure what we'll do when all three of them are done with toys.  Waaaaaah.

As I get wrapped up and consumed by this fiasco I always try and remind myself what the holiday season is really about...and though it helps calm my manic mind, it doesn't totally erase the need I have to get everything done before the last minute. 50 days and counting...

This is not my neighbor's house...but looks equally as tacky!