45 days til Christmas!!!

I love Christmas. I guess most people do, but I love knowing that it wouldn't matter if we spent $5,000 or $5 on gifts, my family would be happy. I've heard so many people talk about how hectic it is and how hard it is to shop for some people, but I just love every minute of it. My kids have gotten everything from bottles of shampoo (in bad years) to TVs (in good years), and they still love me just the same. I'm sure I've given gifts that were not appreciated, and I've received gifts that I didn't care for, but I still love the idea of giving gifts. I love the music and the smells and the colors and the decorated trees. People complain that stores put their Christmas stuff out too early, but I would look at it all year long!! They say Christmas has become too commercial, but I love the fact that, even though some don't mean to, people everywhere are celebrating the birth of my Saviour.

With that in mind, today I decided that I need to get serious about getting ready for Christmas. Usually I do a lot of my shopping during our Oct. trip to the beach. I did some this year, but not nearly as much as I usually do. Part of the problem was that we took my Mother's car on our trip this year. Her Buick is very nice and comfortable, but she just doesn't have the space that I have in my Dodge Caravan. Everything I looked at I found myself wondering where we would put it on the way home. But, to be honest, I just wasn't in the Christmas shopping mood for some reason.

This afternoon, I printed out my shopping list spreadsheet. What?? Doesn't everyone have a spreadsheet to keep track of who is buying what for whom?? See, I told you I was serious about getting ready for Christmas. I may be letting a big secret out of the bag here, but I'm pretty sure everyone in my family knows that I buy all the gifts. So Grandma, whatever you got from the grandkids, they probably wouldn't recognize it if you showed it to them. And Kids, surely you knew that I was buying and wrapping what you gave each other. Rusty gives nice gifts to everyone in the family every year, and everything Rusty gets from all the other members of the family is usually bought and wrapped at the same time.

So, as you can see, if you want to make sure that everyone gets a gift from everyone else, a spreadsheet is the way to go. On the side I list everyone who needs to get a gift and at the top I list everyone who needs to give a gift. Then I fill in the columns as I shop.

Tonight I got into my closet to start wrapping some of the gifts that I have bought, and found some things that I had forgotten about. That was a pleasant surprise. I checked off a couple of people on the spreadsheet, and the cat and I fought over some wrapping paper. I won, but the gift has teeth marks on it.

I know you're probably thinking - "It isn't even Thanksgiving, yet!" But when you have 22 people down and 5 across on the spreadsheet, there's no time like the present!! Was that a pun??