My (unfortunately annual) late-Christmas-gifts apology
Thursday, December 20th, 2007 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanaleh
An open letter to all the family members -- parents, siblings, aunts, niece, and cousins -- who might reasonably expect to get Christmas gifts from me... eventually.
Every year I walk the fine line between "Oh, it's MUCH too early to worry about Christmas shopping and shipping", and "Holy crap, it's December 20th! I should have mailed everything 2 days ago!!".
And every year, it seems, I fall down on the wrong side of that line. You would think I would learn, wouldn't you?
It doesn't mean I don't love you, it just means I am terminally lame. Seriously. I apologize for this. Yes, I've been busy, but who isn't? If I'd planned ahead better -- scheduled in this set of tasks over the past three weeks as rigorously as I schedule all the other work and obligations in my life -- I might be cozily sipping hot chocolate and watching A Charlie Brown Christmas tonight, instead of rushing through last-minute arrangements with this guilty feeling hanging over my head. (Well, not really; actually, I'd be 100 pages further behind on the book project I'm currently typesetting, and therefore even more panicked about that, but the point of this note is not to make excuses.)
It also means I am mentally giving credence to author Ellen Kushner's suggestion of reviving New Year's gifts and cards in place of the Christmas and/or Chanukah versions.
See, for what it's worth, it's not some subconscious resistance to the Christmas idea. I have no fewer than 3 Chanukah gifts I had in time but still have not given, and three more that I still haven't actually even obtained. Moreover, during Chanukah proper, although I had all my gifts for Tiger Boy in sufficient time, I was scurrying EVERY NIGHT before we lit the menorah to wrap the one I was planning to give him THAT NIGHT. *sigh* I could claim that "oh, Chanukah was early this year," but seriously, that is not the problem. It's just me.
I reiterate that I love you just as much as ever and want to send you presents. And I will. Just not in time for the joyful Christmas opening. Watch for them sometime next week. Maybe even on Boxing Day.
In the meantime, I hope your respective Christmases are merry and bright.
P.S. The packages should also include wedding save-the-date announcements for August 31, 2008.
Much love,
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chanaleh
Every year I walk the fine line between "Oh, it's MUCH too early to worry about Christmas shopping and shipping", and "Holy crap, it's December 20th! I should have mailed everything 2 days ago!!".
And every year, it seems, I fall down on the wrong side of that line. You would think I would learn, wouldn't you?
It doesn't mean I don't love you, it just means I am terminally lame. Seriously. I apologize for this. Yes, I've been busy, but who isn't? If I'd planned ahead better -- scheduled in this set of tasks over the past three weeks as rigorously as I schedule all the other work and obligations in my life -- I might be cozily sipping hot chocolate and watching A Charlie Brown Christmas tonight, instead of rushing through last-minute arrangements with this guilty feeling hanging over my head. (Well, not really; actually, I'd be 100 pages further behind on the book project I'm currently typesetting, and therefore even more panicked about that, but the point of this note is not to make excuses.)
It also means I am mentally giving credence to author Ellen Kushner's suggestion of reviving New Year's gifts and cards in place of the Christmas and/or Chanukah versions.
See, for what it's worth, it's not some subconscious resistance to the Christmas idea. I have no fewer than 3 Chanukah gifts I had in time but still have not given, and three more that I still haven't actually even obtained. Moreover, during Chanukah proper, although I had all my gifts for Tiger Boy in sufficient time, I was scurrying EVERY NIGHT before we lit the menorah to wrap the one I was planning to give him THAT NIGHT. *sigh* I could claim that "oh, Chanukah was early this year," but seriously, that is not the problem. It's just me.
I reiterate that I love you just as much as ever and want to send you presents. And I will. Just not in time for the joyful Christmas opening. Watch for them sometime next week. Maybe even on Boxing Day.
In the meantime, I hope your respective Christmases are merry and bright.
P.S. The packages should also include wedding save-the-date announcements for August 31, 2008.
Much love,
chanaleh