Here we are, folks! The first day of summer is finally here, and you know what that means…
It’s time to finally settle up on all of those Christmas presents that you forgot six months ago to make sure that your own lovely John Hancock continues to remain off the Naughty Lists of your friends and family when they start buying up for Christmas 2008!!!
I don’t know – maybe I’m the only one who has these sorts of Claus-ian slips year after year, but if there’s one thing that I’ve learned since moving from Michigan to Florida nearly five years ago is that when it comes to mailing out Christmas presents in a timely manner, I’m about as reliable as a lump of coal … which is actually probably pretty fitting, as it’s a wonder that I haven’t found any of this precious fossil fuel nestled in my own stocking come Christmas morning at the rate that I’m going! As far as my gift-giving track record is concerned, if it was a Christmas cookie, it would be one of those dry Russian tea cakes that eighteen different people end up bringing to the office potluck because they’re too lazy to bake anything that can actually be consumed. If it was a tree, it would be the gnarled stick that Charlie Brown passed up in favor of that slightly-less-gnarled stick for a Christmas tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. If it was a fruitcake, well, you get the idea…
And what really baffles me about the whole debacle is that when push comes to blitzen, I love Christmas! The cookies, the lights, the decorations, the cookies, the caroling, the cookies – you name it, I just eat that stuff up … even moreso if it happens to be made out of gingerbread! I even love shopping for Christmas presents, albeit some folks more than others, primarily dependent on their preferences towards items scented and/or Michael Bolton-related, but apparently that’s right where the red-nosed reindeer stops because the delivery portion of our game isn’t exactly my strong suit.
My best guess is that it’s a selective genetic thing, meaning that while there are some members of my clan whose cards and gifts could replace the need for calendars based on their timeliness, for others of us, you’d have yourself one mighty messed up year if you tried to base anything on our gift-giving schedules! Got a birthday in August? With any luck, that card’ll be in the mail just in time to help you celebrate tax day. Anniversary in March? Well, congratulations and Happy Halloween to you! Christmas in July isn’t so much a state of mind as a rule of thumb around our selective crowd…
…and frankly, between all of us forget-me-lots, that’s perfectly fine and dandy. You forget my back, I’ll forget yours – I know the check’s in the mail, if by mail you mean sitting on the counter with a card, waiting to eventually see a stamp and with any luck, possibly one day the actual mailbox! It’ll show up sooner or later…well, probably not sooner…and besides, what fun is it to get all of your presents on the same day, anyways?! I’d be willing to bet that Santa himself would space out delivering presents over at least a couple of weeks if it weren’t for all those kids popping out of bed at 5am on the same day looking for their loot! You could make a game out of it – Which Day is Santa Going to Come? – although then there’s a chance that some kids could go weeks not knowing whether they were just too bratty to get any presents this year or if their names fell into phase #4 of Santa’s delivery schedule this year.
Maybe Santa could send out letters like the IRS does for tax rebates – YOU QUALIFIED FOR GOOD LIST STATUS FOR THE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS YEAR OF 2008 AND CAN EXPECT YOUR PRESENTS THE WEEK OF JANUARY 17TH.
Nah, I’d like to think that Santa Claus is just a bit more efficient than our federal government, so maybe he should just stick to the all in one night approach…
But as for me, the chances of that happening are about as likely as someone not getting one of those novelty singing fish from me for Christmas on any given year, so for anyone who may have completely unintentionally slipped through the cracks of my holiday shopping last year, please just rest assured that yours truly will promptly be making a list, checking it twice, and then stapling it to my own forehead until each and every useless trinket has been wrapped, stamped, and delivered.
I hope the post office will be ok – you think gas is expensive, then clearly you’ve never priced out freight via reindeer during the offseason lately!