How to: pull christmas off in one day

1. drink too much wine the night before

2. sleep in.

3. Make Lists (To Do and To Get) AND a quest map.

4. Buy a bunch of stuff. Almost lose the car keys. Find them in my back pocket.

5. Take a BREAK. eat candy. drink tea. do various other Non-xmas-prepratory stuff.

6. Notice it's 3pm. GAH. Start making cookies. For Santa.

7. 3:05: oh no. the presents. forgot about that. shit. put the cookie dough in the fridge.

8. 3:30. Call my "other sister." Have a long and fantastically ridiculous conversation with Brato about our (brief) memories of going to mass last year and what he wants for christmas ("the head of a wooden Christian icon") and his new job as "price labeling boy" at the local store. Discuss explosive string. Talk about German Fruitcake and how calling it fruitcake is an insult. Make a Note to Self: Ask Brato's Mom for German Fruitcake next year. Oh and learn to write German.

9. 4:00 pm. shit. the cookies...

10. notice I forgot to put on deodorant.

11. 4.05: decide to take a nap

12. 5:00: wake up

13. pour myself a large glass of wine. 

12. start cooking dinner...cook, eat, clean up

13. hang stockings, leave cookies, kiss kids goodnight

14. 9:00 pm: pull out all the presents, start wrapping....

15. discuss our collective teenage-hood till 11:50. Head to Mass.

16. Arrive at Midnight Mass just in time for the last song and for everyone to leave. stand around and be two heathens. Swear that last year it was actually at Midnight. Try to crash another Mass without success. Number of full Masses I've attended in my life: 0. The mystery is really starting to get to me.

17. Arrive home. Read Mastering the Art of French cooking. Fall asleep almost under the tree.