it's beginning to look a lot like a disorganized mess replete with massive credit card debt

I am, habitually, a christmas-eve shopper. this is for several reasons. one is that I am a procrastinator, which I'm sure you find shocking. two is that I get so excited to give people presents that I can hardly contain myself and so making the wait from purchase to giving as short as possible makes me way more calm. three is that it is tradition, and it is comforting, and I even have learned to enjoy shopping with all the last-minuters.

and now, I have added a fourth reason: elimination of second-guessing. I counted 23 presents under the tree yesterday before I had even wrapped everything - BEFORE wrapping sean, trent, and bella's gifts. so that's just friends and family. I am estimating about 26 people in all that we buy for. we've had to cut back on how much we spend, because....at $30 a pop average, that's $780, then there's the parental gifts that cost more. and as you can see by my masterful travel planning, we can't be throwing money around like that because we may need it. so I went out early this year, hunting bargains. and I did well. and I did well fairly quickly. I have everything purchased and wrapped and it's only the 20th. but then, I'd think of what I got people and start worrying that it wasn't enough. a nice frilly scarf and beaded wool hat and a cute indian-mosaic mirror for jo-anne seems like a good gift, right? but is it BIG ENOUGH? a warm sweater with an irish shamrock and some other irishness on it, which was more expensive than most of the other gifts already, for sean's dad seems like a great gift, but shouldn't there be more to open??

now I'm finding myself buying more stuff to supplement the gifts I got already, because I'm all worried about how they'll be perceived. how stupid is that?? at least when I do my last minute stuff, there's no time to worry about how it'll be perceived. I probably would have spent less. plus, because I already wrapped stuff and ran out of the wrapping paper I used to wrap the original presents, the supplemental presents are wrapped in different paper. and it's wildly different, as I used blueish paper to wrap the first batch of gifts and I only had red and green ho ho ho and xmas tree paper to wrap the rest. so now I'm freaking out that they'll KNOW it was a supplemental gift. god. I am SURE this isn't what baby jesus wanted.

in other news, jarrett and his wife jenal gave birth to a (compared to their firstborn, tiny) little baby girl today shortly after 8am. they named her lucy. so cute. babies, babies everywhere! but not a cheek to eat.