Christmas Come and Gone

As a kid riding in the car with my mother, stuck behind the trash collectors driving up Ridgefield Road, she used to say, “They are slow as Christmas.” It took me a while to understand that what she was describing was how slow it feels for Christmas morning to come. I should have gotten that as a child because waiting to see if Santa came felt like an eternity. Those last few days in school before Christmas break dragged on and on, but then December 22, 23 and 24 were days with 36, 48 and 56 hours long each.
Sadly, now Christmas comes in a blink. There is hardly enough time to get everything done. I only bought one gift before November, but that was something meaningful from Italy for my sister Janet. This year I paid Carter to wrap all the presents that were not for her and even then I was still up working late last night. Russ jumped in to help me this morning with the preparations of the Christmas feast while Carter was still asleep and before my family arrived for the one day all year we are together. Thank goodness for his precision carrot peeling skills we actually got everything ready on time.
Around noon two cars full of Carters laden down with wrapped gifts arrived, making multiple trips carrying things into the house. Then the gift giving began. We had said this was going to be a smaller Christmas, but still the opening takes time to ohh and ahh at each sweet gift. Not having wrapped my own gifts made each one a surprise to me as well as to the receiver. 
All through the opening I kept getting up to finish up cooking the lamb, or preparing the popovers, or cooking the green beans. After the presents were done we sat down at the dining room table to have the Christmas meal. All the food was done at the right time and my major job for the day was done.
After dessert Mom, Dad and Margaret went back to the farm, while Janet and Sophie stayed for a longer visit. Since this is the one day all year we know we will see them we tried to drag out the visit as long as possible. Then, the time came that they too had to go. This meant Christmas was officially over.  
Despondently, we washed the dishes, sad that Christmas had come and gone. Carter went up to the tree to clean up the bags of paper and called out, “Oh no, an unopened gift for Janet.” It was the special mug from Bar Bruno in Positano I had carried back from Italy. Bar Bruno was the bar she hung out at as an nine year old. I had envisioned the whole family laughing about Bar Bruno when she opened that gift. But now Christmas has come and gone and I messed up big. I waited since March to give this gift, but my old memory just couldn’t remember it all these months, even as fast as Christmas comes to me now. I guess I am just going to have to drive this gift up to the farm tomorrow before Janet leaves…Christmas is not gone yet.