“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 647 (Thursday)

For several weeks, I smugly thought I was done with the acquisition of the Christmas gift items. Night after night and each weekend for over a month, I’ve kicked back, feet up on the ottoman, watching whatever is streaming on the big screen. It’s been stress free. It’s been great. 

A paper tree is all
I could deal with.

Tonight, after work, I finally buckled down to do the wrapping, bagging, and tagging. That’s when I realized oversights had occurred. Gift for X? Oops. Gift for Y? Oh, crap. Had the “checkout” button been pushed any one of the dozens of times that cool things had been loaded into online shopping carts since Halloween, it would have been all set.  And it was too late now. Live and learn. Or something.

Earlier in the day, it was decided to make the family kielbasa recipe for Mom’s on Friday night. The only problem to executing the plan was the absence of kielbasa in the house, because without it, the recipe is just a cooked mixture of ketchup, vinegar and brown sugar. At least I was already in the frame of mind to head out shopping.

A trip was made out to the world. The kielbasa was procured, along with a couple non-food gift items, and it was done. Again.  Back at home, the recipe was made so it just needs reheating tomorrow. While it baked, the rest of the gifts were wrapped and tagged and checked off the list. And wouldn’t you know it, there was still something missing.

The options were going back out again or waiting until the morning, which is a scheduled vacation day. The vacation day was previously mapped out for drinking coffee and boxing baked goods for Mom’s. To avoid extra stress in the morning, it was back out to the store.

The wrapping, bagging and tagging was completed. The list has been triple checked. Quadruple checked. The gifts were stacked beneath the folded paper tree constructed from two catalogues long enough to take a picture and then they went into a box. I needed proof for myself that I haven’t completely thrown in the towel with the Christmas spirit thing. Despite having several trees and many storage tubs of lights and decorations in the basement, a paper folded tree is the closest I could get to the work of decorating this year. It just felt like too much.