This post is a little premature seeing as we have a whole other 48 hours to get through before the holiday actually hits. But as the tally of my failures grows, I feel the need to get some things off my chest.

1. Friends and relations: From I'd say Thanksgiving until this very moment, every box I have received has been hastily thrown into the guest room without me so much as looking at the label. You're probably wringing your hands at home checking tracking numbers and such and wondering why I haven't told you that everything has gotten here in one piece. Especially since I'm on the phone with you once a week asking if my package has arrived. Is it there yet? How 'bout now? But when you ask me kindly to return the favor I laugh and explain that I've been busy. Lately. Sorry. 

2. Friends and relations: Now that I've opened every box, the joke is on me! haha!! That is so funny! I thought I had ten gifts to wrap, but I really have 248. Yeah, I know it's easier just to ship it, and the Amazon gift wrapping costs so much. Oh, and that Advent calendar you sent is awesome. Too bad the whole significance will be lost on my children. When I give it to them, tomorrow, the twenty-fucking-third of December, they will have to race through all the numbers and be quite profoundly pissed when I tell them that they can't open the 24th door YET. I have learned my lesson.

3. Neighbors: When I moved here, y'all didn't know each other. I think it was my goats that tended to roam around and destroy everyone's yard instead of keeping my own weeds down that brought us together. We are all friendly (in spite of the goats--those fuckers), and we've been exchanging Christmas presents since I started it up maybe five years ago. So, yes, I do feel like a jackass, and I probably blushed for an hour after your visit where you presented me with a card and a gift, and I looked at you blankly and pretended I no longer spoke English.

4. Husband: You forked over some serious dough to buy me a new laptop because my computer has decided that my requests are no big rush. It arrived two weeks ago and yet I'm typing this on my old computer.

5. Husband: The other night, when you asked me if I had plans after the kids went to bed, I thought you were going to ask me for sex, and I was so burnt out that I didn't even shave my legs that morning or really any morning in recent memory, but you are probably still pissed about the computer, so you asked me to send out Christmas cards since it's, you know, the week of Christmas and everything. Not sure if that counts as a sentence, but I guarantee if I was writing that in Microsoft Word it would take my computer--the one I am working on NOW--a full ten minutes to highlight that monstrosity in green.