Ribbons and Bows

And the run for the holiday continues. For the last many, many years I have been one of those pathetic individuals who could be located in the mall on Christmas Eve. Every single year I would vow, with the same sincerity I use when trying to negotiate some detail of my life with God, that next year I would have my act together. Not that there isn't something sort of thrilling about playing Race the Clock as I sweep through Macy's grabbing at anything in some sort of effort to complete my quest before they accidentally lock me in for the night. However, when one does this the Christmas Shopping Error Factor goes way up and it can be a tad unfortunate to watch your 6'8" adult male child open a pastel sweater with an appliqued bear on the front of it, or when you have to explain to your mother that, no, you don't think she's fat, you didn't realize that you had purchased a size XXXXX. And its not like I don't enjoy spending half the night locked in my bedroom wrapping all my last-minute purchases. I mean, surely, no one could find anything more fun than wrapping, right? So what if I go to bed at 4AM forgetting that the ONLY day of the year my children wake with the first light of dawn is coming in 2 hours....

But, despite all those good times, I have decided that this year I will be more on top of it. As though in some sort of unspoken reminder that I really need to grow up, three huge boxes arrived on my doorstep on Dec. 5. All three of these boxes were from my mother. OK, having it together is one thing, but Dec. 5th? Isn't that just a wee bit over the top? Grumbling about how she has to be some sort of freak of nature to be this organized, I haul the boxes inside and proceed to ignore them right along with the rest of the holiday. Well, "ignore" to the best of my ability, that is. Hard to do when you are being carted off to one festivity after another and everyone around you has taken "merry" to another level.

But determined I was, so on the 16th I went shopping. I thought it was going to be a zoo, but it wasn't. (My girlfriend thought it was, but then she doesn't have the Xmas Eve Mania to use as comparison.) I was proud of myself. I had even managed to do this in time to avoid the dreaded OVERNIGHT MAIL (which, in my vast experience is a tremendous failure 90% of the time. Overnight maybe, over which night is anybody's guess. I think they should re-bill it with more honesty - Over the Night of January 7th or something along those lines.) So that evening I returned home, quite the successful little shopper and proceeded to start wrapping the gifts that need to be shipped, amongst them those for my youngest child who will not be home this year.

Now, I hate wrapping. And I'm bad at it. I've always admired people who hand over those beautifully wrapped packages. You know the ones - gold paper, sparkly netted ribbon, perfectly coifed bows..... I say I'm going to do that, but if I'm honest I have to admit that I'm lucky enough to be able to tie my tennis shoes, nevermind achieving the high level of aesthetic bow that I want to. So, in the name of tradition, I give the first package a go and it isn't too bad. Of course it is a movie and therefore relatively straight forward. As soon as I moved onto the clothes I was in trouble. Naturally I had neglected to consider boxes for any of my purchases, so there I was, the Queen of Tape, trying to referee the battle between the lumpy sweater and the evil, evil paper. By the time I was done with that nonsense, the very idea of a pretty bow was well out the window and I blessed the little bag of pre-stick bows I was now slamming down with something akin to an assembly bottling line.

Hours later I have accomplished my goal. I sit back, exhausted. I know I still need to open my mother's boxes and remove my son's gifts to ship them along with mine, but frankly I'm annoyed with her. I'm sitting in a room surrounded by snippets of wrapping paper, scissors, tape, labels, bags, wadded up bunches of wrapping paper that rudely tore in my efforts, popcorn and ribbon strewn around me, none of which made it to the presents. Kodak is asleep on the couch next to me, having lost interest in my plight and my oldest son is nowhere to be seen having found a timely exit to be in his best interest. The only one who seems to want to "share" in the moment with me would be my cat, Boo boo, who is kamikazing the discarded wrapping paper and doing his level best to complete the perfect picture of mayhem for me. And in the middle of all of this are my mother's three boxes, dated December-freaking-fifth, taunting me for my perpetual state of flux.

I turned gratefully to my television at that point, and resigned myself to watching my favorite holiday character, the beloved Grinch, and once again relating altogether too well to his outlook on things.

The next day I knew I had to brave the inevitable. I had to break into my mother's world and face the fact that I will never quite be the perfect picture of domesticity and organization that she is. Or anywhere close, probably.

WELL!!!! Imagine my surprise when I opened all three boxes and learned her secret! Nothing was wrapped. Nothing. Nada. Zip. There must have been 50 things in those boxes, all snuggled in together, shawls and sweaters providing padding for frames, vases and varying fragile items.

I absolutely howled with laughter for a minute then abruptly stopped when it dawned on me that my son's presents were also unwrapped. Oh dear. I eyed the tragedy of wrapping paper that my cat had left me and contemplated the situation. I should, could, wrap them.

Two hours later the UPS truck was moseying down the street with my boxes. My job was done. All that was left to do was make one short call to my son.

"Honey? I just sent you a box today. Just wanted to let you know that the unwrapped gifts are from your Grandmother. You know how she is, right?"

HA!

Sharon

OH yes - again with this - I'm a photographer, notice me, notice me, notice me - www.thedawsonstudios.com. And I do promise that eventually I will figure out how to do this part of the blog with more finesse. Maybe.