Cram in that holiday spirit

When I was a kid, finding the holiday spirit was easy.  Everything was done for kids, the displays, the songs, the cookies.  What I did not realize then was that someone actually had to make those things happen, and now as a mom, I have come to realize, sadly, that it is on me.

So I bake the cookies, a bazillion different kinds and 12 million dozen of each.  Then when the kids raid the freezer where they are stored and eat them all up, I bake a bazillion and one.  I wrap...and wrap....and wrap. Five kids plus lots of prezzies equals hours upon hours of wrapping, like 6 hours of wrapping...it was insane.  I have about three more things for my kids and then my parents, my niece and my nephew to go and we are officially done. and I can hang up my scissors and tape for another year.

So today I got up and out the door at 9 so I could run to the bigger town south of us and get the last few errands done.  I had three stores and the farm to go to and even leaving at 9, I would be lucky to be home by noon. Left the kids with the hubby and off I went.  Then I got to Best Buy and grabbed my stuff and noticed....my wallet was missing.  Crap.  I then remembered that I put it on my end table last night before I began wrapping (again) and I didn't grab it on my way out the door.  I also did not have enough gas to get home since gas is cheaper in that town and I planned to fill up, if you know, I had a wallet.  The only saving grace was that I had the hubby's car and he had the big van, so he had to load everyone up and drive down to bring me my wallet.  It took them an hour, since they weren't dressed and well, they are slow, and by then I was in tears and stressed and I hadn't even had any coffee!  When he pulled up, I burst into tears like a baby because I had so much to do, and the hubby kindly offered to go to the farm for me to save me the extra drive and stop.  So off I went to the three stores, got what I needed and made it home to clean like mad and bake those replacement cookies.  Now getting ready to serve dinner and then work so that maybe, just maybe, tonight I can watch a festive show or movie to get more in the spirit.  Seriously, we need to get on that whole "elf" idea!