You’ve done all of your shopping. You’ve done all of your baking. You’ve done all of your mailing and delivering. You people make me sick!

You’re the kind of people who have already started making a list for your after-Christmas shopping. You’re going to buy stuff now for what you intend to give people next year.  

You’ll buy gifts on deep discount when the clearance sales are going on and smugly stow stuff away for next year. There’s probably a few of you psychopaths out there who will even wrap it up in Christmas paper and tie bows on gifts before New Year’s Eve.

I can just see it now; a dozen “Snuggies” purchased for $7.99 each, all carefully wrapped and sitting in a row in the back of a closet. They’re all ready for Christmas 2012.

I guess you can see my Christmas anxiety manifesting itself as vindictiveness towards people who plan ahead and don’t procrastinate. It’s a common syndrome. Procrastinators tend to think of non-procrastinators as having defective personalities. Dumb guys like me like to categorize smart people as being “too tightly wrapped” and “smug.”  

It all boils down to envy, I suppose. I wish I was more on the ball and not quite so dumb especially when it comes to Christmas preparations. I do have two or three days though to solve all my Christmas anxieties. I often say, “If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.”

I think I just need to take deep breaths and pause. I need to pat myself on the back for the things that I have gotten done so far this Christmas season. Therapists say we need to sometimes focus on the good things that we’ve done and not worry quite so much about all of the undone things.  

I have gotten Christmas lights up on the outside of the house. Yay for me! I have put the real Christmas tree into a stand and gotten it into the house last weekend. Yay for me! (And that tree is standing relatively straight, if you shut one eye and partially shut the other eye.)  

I made a double batch of fudge last Sunday night. I just need to find time to cut it up and give it out to this year’s fudge recipients. Gee, I’m feeling better already. I have done a few things for Christmas. I’m not as unprepared as I thought.  

I’m trying really hard right now not to think of the “undone things.” It’s not easy because there are so many. And to be therapeutically fair to myself, I have to remember that I have a son getting married next week. That little piece of information may give you an additional insight into my Christmas anxiety.

I just have to remember my answer that I give to people when they ask, “Are you ready for Christmas?” My answer is, “I’ve found Christmas happens regardless of whether I’m ready or not.”

But never fear. I will be ready.  One way or another, I will declare myself ready. And in all my preparations and lack of preparations, I am attempting to remember “the reason for the season.” It’s sometimes difficult, but someone has made it a little bit easier. Our home is the target of someone doing the “Twelve days of Christmas.”

We have a gift to open and a story to read each day. The gifts and stories are geared to help us remember the spiritual side of the holiday. I’m grateful for being remembered by someone who is helping me remember.

Enjoy your Christmas. Have a great time with family and friends. And if you know someone who doesn’t have a friend or a family, include them somehow in your Christmas circle.

I’ll sign off with a Christmas “smile” that I like.  

A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. “But why,” they asked, as they moved off. “Because,” he said, “I can’t stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.” …. Merrill