I realize we refer to this month as “the most wonderful time of the year” and I don’t disagree with that, but let’s have a little #realtalk for a second…the week before Christmas is straight up the most stressful week of the year!

Let’s start with the fact that every time you go to an online stores website you see the big flashing words “Only one day left to order and receive in time for Christmas”. I don’t know about you but it seriously gives me a full blown panic attack every time I see it!  A person can only search for items so fast to put in that shopping cart and check out!

And we still haven’t found time to take a family photo for me to post on social media in order to count that as having mailed out a Christmas card to everyone, since heaven knows I’ll never have time to do actual Christmas cards as there hasn’t been a year yet I’ve managed to send one out.  I  have to give total props to people who find the time to take a family photo, write an update letter, and mail them out every year…total respect…seriously I wish I was like that, but alas I am not…

And then there is all that Christmas baking that still needs to get done. Sugar cookies to bake and frost, fudge to make…and oh dang…did I remember to order a honey-baked ham to serve for Christmas dinner yet?! I know I haven’t bought any of the other condiments I’ll need to make Christmas dinner yet so let me add grocery shopping to my list…and I can’t forget to double check on that ham!

And can we just spend a second venting about gift wrapping?!  It is seriously the most unproductive use of time and the biggest waste of paper and tape and bows in the history of time. It takes FOREVER and a day to wrap every gift and they are only going to get ripped open and the paper thrown away in huge trash bags on Christmas morning anyway….and yet, I’m the first to insist on wrapping every present…it’s a must! It makes absolutely no sense at all to do it, but nonetheless it MUST be done so wrap on it is….

And so in this week before Christmas I am without a doubt getting ridiculously behind on answering emails and returning phone calls but I’ll just cross my fingers and hope that no one is offended I’m not responding…  perhaps it will turn out that I am not the only person out there this week who is rushing to buy last minute gifts online while covered in flour and frosting, surrounded by piles of wrapping paper with rows of little strands of tape stuck to their arms listening to Joy to the World on the radio and feeling guilty about not having a Christmas card to send out to anyone….If it turns out I am the only one feeling this way then maybe let’s just not tell me because it’s so much nicer to believe I’m not the only one having a full blown panic attack this week 😉

May we all get through the last minute shopping and baking and wrapping this week.  And may we get the stressful parts behind us early in our week so we can at least enjoy these last few days of this most wonderful time of the year.

~Amy Rees Anderson