The Holidays Snuck Up On Me

I’m blaming the election for my lack of planning for the holidays this year. I am usually more on top of holiday entertaining, but suddenly I woke up this morning and thought, “S$&@, I have at least five or six parties I need to plan and throw in the next five weeks and I have not done a thing.”
Most of these are parties I give every year so none of it should come as a surprise, but on top of my regular stuff, like Carter’s birthday and my needlepoint lunch it is my year to host the Christmas Garden Club auction. I am not complaining, which would be so first world of me. I love the holidays and I love to entertain, but I wish that I had started menu planning back in October, instead of watching the debates. Turned out that winning debates made little effect on the outcome. I could have been inventing new make ahead luncheon dishes which would have been a much more productive use of my time.
I have gotten some Christmas shopping done, so that is a bonus, except that I have nothing for my husband and if anyone deserves a present it is him. If anyone has any brilliant man gift ideas please shoot them my way. I need something for my dad as well.
Just when I realized that I was behind on planning parties I also found out that my pictures for Carter’s yearbook are due before Christmas. My friend Stephanie warned me to get that ad page done in the summer before she started senior year, but somehow that never happened. Now I am spending time looking at every photo in my computer and that is only the 200,000 that I have taken since she was seven. I still have to look at the early years, which are not digital. How can I possibly whittle them down to one page worth?
Something is going to have to give. It already looks like it is laundry based on the pile of sweaters on the table in my bedroom. I still have not changed my summer and winter clothes out in my closet. I blame the eighty degree November days for that.
So where did the year go and why do I have so little to show for it? At least I have the fun of spending my time watching Carter play basketball games. Too bad I get so into those games and can’t plan menus there.