Hallogivmas

I currently have bats hanging all over my living room,  Thanksgiving recipes open in my internet browser, and, to top it all off, I have a Christmas CD in my stereo.

This is wrong.

I'm typically very strict about my holiday seasons and go VERY FAR out of my way to keep them from overlapping. I make a habit of giving dirty looks to anyone going Christmas-crazy before Thanksgiving, and for me (and my roommate, by association), the Christmas season isn't allowed to officially start until December 6th.

This year, however, I have failed myself.

Have you ever tried to give yourself a dirty look in the mirror? It's not very good for your self esteem. I don't recommend it.

My first brilliant idea to keep myself chilled-out this year was to be uber-organized. I started this by setting up an Excel file with gift lists. It's not helping. No, as a matter of fact, I think I spent ten minutes staring at it, getting more depressed. ("Holy crap, how am I supposed to get all this done on time????? Do I actually like these people? Do they like me back? Am I going to spend too much money on Bethany? Am I going to spend too little money on Matt? Are these worth buying? Am I going to have to special order that? How long does it take to ship DVDs from Liechtenstein?") It shouldn't be this daunting. It really shouldn't. I only have fourteen names on this list. *cough* (It may be SLIGHTLY more than fourteen presents. Maybe. Just slightly. It might possibly be, oh, I don't know....closer to 53 or something.....but that's just a guess!)

After angsting over my Christmas presents, it finally hit me that Thanksgiving is in less than a week. Yep, that's right. Less than seven days. By my calculations, I have less than 119 hours before Thanksgiving. In those 119 hours, I have to work 30 hours at my sucky day job, bake at least two pies, conjure up a Thanksgiving menu I may actually be able to cook without disaster, clean my house so it's semi-presentable, figure out who I'm actually spending Thanksgiving with this year, and then maybe try to sleep at some point.

Me? Stressed? Nooooo.....

I'm also beginning to think it might be time to take down my Halloween decorations, since the people two doors down already have their lawn buried under Christmas decorations. Then again, if I keep procrastinating and stressing out about other stuff, maybe I can just leave them up until next year.

How are your holiday plans coming along? Are you cool as a cucumber or will you be running around like a madman trying to buy cranberry sauce on Wednesday night like me?