The Mad Dash

    It's a cold, wet, miserable Sunday morning, and I'd love nothing more than to curl up with the Sunday newspapers, a pot of coffee, and a pencil for the Sunday crossword puzzle. No. Not today. Not this month. And definitely not this year. The mad dash to the holidays has begun.
    I have a love/hate relationship with the time period between Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday) and Christmas. There's always too much to do, and not enough time to do it, and I'm usually afraid I'll disappoint or offend someone, so there's a certain amount of generalized angst. This year is particularly bad as, through the horrid quirks of two different calendars (Gregorian and Jewish), Thanksgiving was on November 28, Chanukkah starts the evening of December 22, and Christmas is December 25. That leaves me with three weeks to

• clean the house from top to bottom;
• decorate it inside and out;
• do all the food shopping for a round of parties and fancy dinners;
• make a mountain of cookies and confections; and
• buy and wrap presents

without losing my mind, my patience, my sense of humor, or my coffee cup. Add in a 20-yard warp that should be woven off by the end of the year, and I'm a teensy bit overwhelmed. It's why I've dropped a few things off the list over the years. For example, I don't send out Christmas cards. I also don't host fancy sit-down dinners, opting instead for buffet-style cocktail parties and open houses.
    I also make lists. Lots of lists. And timelines. I use a couple different programs to track what I need to do when, and to prepare shopping lists. For example, I know we'll probably have house guests next weekend, so the house should be clean by Friday afternoon. I also need to go "big shopping" on Wednesday, so I have to skip that day in the number of days (2) I need to get the house ready. I also need to lay out the general meal plans for December and make shopping lists--that takes several hours. I also need to mix more cookie doughs and get them into the freezer for baking later in the month. Today's To Do list includes:

• Finish December menus and shopping lists (I started on this yesterday).
• Bake a pie for dessert.
• Continue sewing the lights on the Christmas tree hat. 
• Finish knitting the toe on a "travel/social knitting" (aka "drunk knitting") sock.
• Mix up cookie doughs for freezer.

This list keeps growing, so I'd better get to it.