Still to do

It’s taken me a few  days to decide what I want to put on my ‘to do’ list. There are plenty of things for me to do but I’m not going to do them all & deciding what to pitch & what to keep is challenging.

Lights or cookies?

Gift bags or gift wrap?

Make teacher gifts or buy teacher gifts?

Which cookies?

What lights?

Xmas crafts for the boys?

Work on layouts or read books?

Shop for stocking stuffers or just grab some Pokemon card packs?

I’d like to at least have holiday lights in the living room but due to topography it isn’t up to me. Oh I can say “please hang up the lights honey” but the hanging is on him & if he doesn’t get to it… he doesn’t get to it.

Last year I made 5 different kinds of cookie, 4 chocolate & one sugar. So far this year I have made none. I want to make cookies, it’s just the idea of a house full of cookies makes me gain 4lbs just thinking about it. I’d like to wait until close to Christmas when we might have more company visiting to eat the cookies, but the kids’ last day of school is the 17th & I like making cookies in a leisurely fashion that is impossible with boys around.

I have fabric bags I made when I was pregnant with Mayhem & it was much easier to sit & sew some rectangles & then stuff things in them than try & wrap gifts. We use them every year with personal gifts but gifts to others require something disposable. Bags are more expensive. But oh I hate wrapping gifts.

Last year I made crochet snowman ornaments for the teachers. This year I cannot find the pattern I used, not to mention the focused time to work on them. I have a glove sitting on my desk since we got back from Florida that needs the last 7 rounds finished & I just haven’t been able to get around to it.

We have stuff to make wooden letter ornaments for the kids’ friends. I just need to find the Mod Podge for the glitter layer.

I’d like to browse for stocking stuffers but it’s Dec 9 and getting parking within a quarter mile of Target or Wal Mart should prove nearly impossible, even at 10am on a Thursday. But I think one of the grocery stores has Pokemon cards.

I also need to find some new ornament storage containers, which means Wal Mart or Target as well because we spatially challenged people cannot buy containers over the web. They always end up the wrong size.

Then there are the gifts I still have to buy. I have 4 card games, a Lego game and a boxed book set on the wish list still at Amazon & every day I check their prices & buy them as they go on sale. I have a Prime membership so I get free 2 day shipping & could conceivably still be ordering gifts as late as Dec 22. But realistically I have to order or buy in person everything by Dec 17th so they can be hidden while the kids are not around.

And I have to think of a gift for DH. I have no idea what he wants. He interest lately has been on economic history & I am thinking of buying him some lectures from the Great Courses. Odd Xmas gift to be sure but he spent all of Thanksgiving break staying up late reading about economic theory and practice in the early twentieth century so I think it would get used.

So how is your to do list looking? Done all your shopping? Your decorating?