'Twas the Day Before Christmas

'Twas the day before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse.

Mom sprang into action
And cried,
"What are you people doing just sitting around? Clean something!"

And thus the family was introduced to Christmas Tradition #564.2. The house must be cleaned Christmas Eve so that the Christmas pictures will show a nice clean house and you can preserve the fiction for posterity that, of course, our house was always spotless. So I started my mental To Do list for the day, but DH quickly threw a wrench into things with the simple question of "Do the polly cars for K get wrapped or go in her stocking?"

Huh?

Oh. Uh-oh. I totally forgot that I had asked W to pick those up and hadn't accounted for them when buying for L's stocking. Think, think, think. By Santa, I've got it!! My sister had gotten L 2 dolls to go with her big present and for K she bought a Build a Bear gift certificate. So I can copy and reverse those in their stockings and have K get the 2 polly cars to go with *her* big gift and get L a BAB gift certificate, which I could buy online and never have to go to the store! Did that totally confuse you? It comes out even in that both girls each get 2 doll sets and $10 for BAB. And even is *very important*.

Then I got the bright idea to go ahead and pack the stockings. I started with W's and had to take a couple of things out of the package so it would all fit (because I'm just that nice of a wife :-)) and moved onto K's. I got both girls a teeny-tiny Littlest Pet Shop set, so I cut open the ridiculously hard to open package, clipped all the teeny-tiny twist-ties, stuffed all the pieces together and tried to close it. And kept trying. And bit my tongue to keep from cursing it out. And tried some more. And resisted the overwhelming urge to toss it against the wall. And finally set it aside and pulled out L's teeny-tiny Littlest Pet Shop. I cut open the package and all those twist-ties, put it all together, and...had no problem closing it.

At least it wasn't due to my ineptitude that K's wouldn't shut. It was legitimately broken. But it meant a trip to Target with the zillion pieces of packaging and a stop at the Service Desk and a walk through the toy section to find a replacement. The day before Christmas. That's a suicide mission, folks.

And my wonderful, thoughtful, amazing W offered to go for me. For a crowd-hating claustrophobic to offer something like that? That's LOVE. And he said he needed to pick up something at Target anyway, so I gladly handed over the bag filled with pieces and sat down to write this blog post.

But I can't sit here for long. I've got a house to clean.