See this lady?  This is the picture I have in my head when I envision myself at  the holidays   I am dressed in an adorable outfit carrying a Starbucks cup and a small purse. As I stroll casually through the mall I stop to reminisce about trimming the tree earlier in the day with my teenagers as we sipped hot cocoa and listened to Christmas carols.  All my shopping is finished I am just at the mall for a little Christmas cheer and to meet my friends for a long lunch.

I can enjoy lunch knowing that all the holiday baking is done and my house looks like a winter wonderland.  Presents are wrapped with each person having a different theme and the bows are perfectly matched. While I am waiting for a table one of the kids calls and ask if they can volunteer at the local homeless shelter on Christmas Eve. I have to tell them no because I think ten years in a row is enough and I demand that they spend the day with the family.

Then I wake up.

In reality the holiday season starts with great expectations and ends with me vowing to sell the Christmas tree at a garage sale and giving up the holidays all together.

Even if I start shopping on Halloween I am still out on Christmas Eve looking for a few more things.  Dressed  in sweat pants and waging my big HoBo purse I am panicked and frazzled. My bag exploding with receipts and coupons that I can’t ever find in the store when I need them digs a groove into my shoulder.   I am rushing because there are still totes in the entryway blocking the front door that have been there for the last 23 days because the kids just can’t be bothered to carry them to storage.  One bulb will be burnt out on the tree and that will mean an entire section is dark.  I will about two weeks past my annual ” I am becoming  a Jehovah’s Witness and we are never celebrating a holiday again!! No Christmas, no birthdays, no Ground Hog’s Day!!!! They are all history.  I make this threat every year.  In fact that is how my children know that there are two weeks until Christmas.  No need for an Advent calendar when you can gauge how many days until Christmas by the level of your mother’s hysteria.

Just once I would like to look like the lady in the picture above.  Smartly dressed, organized and brimming with Christmas cheer.  Will there ever be a day when I am sipping a martini with friends on December 23 and not doing vanilla vodka shots while I bake dozens of cookies at two in the morning? What would it be like not to snap mid December and threaten to join a different religion?  Do those people exist?

I dream of the day when I will be so old that I will be able to sit home with my 18″ silver Christmas tree in my housecoat sipping a vodka tonic. Surrounding the tinsel tree will be cards with crisp ten dollar bills inside for each grandchild. I will arrive at Ashley’s house just in time for dinner and fall asleep in a chair while they all do the dishes. Right before I drift off I will hear Ashley in the kitchen mumbling something about Jehovah’s witnesses. Like mother, like daughter. ‘Tis the season.