I was going to cast aspersions on.. um... Santa's M.O. - but that wouldn't be PC. Would it? But honestly... You would think after ... so many.. years, Santa would have the equal distribution of prezzies between 3 siblings in one family all sorted. Wouldn't you? Hmmm. You'd be wrong. It's a random escalation of purchases fest here. One each of this sort of thing. One each of that sort of thing. Repeat until it looks like it'll fill one of those gift bags each. Mostly 'fill up the bag' stuff.. but hopefully a couple of 'oh cool!' things. Until the sighting (and purchase) of an 'oh, Child X will love that' item .. but then the score needs to be sort of evened up.. quantity-wise.. and sort of size wise, because you can't have one sack/bag appearing to be overflowing, and one half empty looking. Can you...? (And then what if the X item is something a bit on the large side?)

I'm going insane. I'm also starting to think I've not removed things from 'hiding' places, when I have. I took a list with me to town this afternoon, but lost it, and so forgot stuff. So still one more trip to town required this week... Plus what feels like a kazillion and one other things.. that I could be doing now, but it's 10.30 pm, so I'm not starting anything else now.. that would just be stupid.. when I can blog instead. And wait and see if I catch Marc online.

When I think about it, it's not as bad as Rootietoot's list. Well.. at least I have more than one day to do my list. And I don't have to flea dip any dogs.

I did get to cross stuff off my list today. I did achieve.. I did, I did. Mainly in terms of getting a few parcels sorted and sent, and the snail mail cards done and sent. Not as much as I would have liked to achieve...but still. I plead general unwellness and still having a few coughing fits. I think I feel a bit better.. but I'm still not "well". I must have looked shite because I got an 'early mark' from netball this evening. (Very strange that nobody said anything about me not being at the lunch on Sunday... guess they didn't miss me.)

I have three more days to:

mow the yard
vacuum the house
change/wash sheets on all beds
several more laundry loads, by the time Friday comes around
make mini xmas cakes (which I should have done already...and would scratch if I hadn't already soaked mixed fruit and almonds in brandy)
post birthday present to nephew
sort lilos/air mattresses (for canyoning...)
finalise present shopping
write a packing list for girls (and supervise packing)
write a packing list for me (including food/condiments, sheets/towels for holiday house)
get girls to stop slothing/fighting/saying 'it's not my turn to do that' and HELP ... for god's sake
stop eating bloody shortbreads (leftovers from Ali's homemade batch)
wash car/vacuum
sort someone to collect our mail
do the actual packing
get through kids Touch tomorrow afternoon..
and 3 x swimming squad classes on Friday afternoon.

Oh there's more.. but that will keep me going till I revise it...
Maybe I'll come back and put that strikethrough thingy through it all... so I can see that I am getting somewhere.

The hilarious thing is that, when the school teachers got their card (the photo stuck on a silver card with transparent photo corners).. plus their gifts (the girls decorated plates with porcelain pens, then we bake them... Ali had the most wonderful teacher this year, so she put 'Best Teacher Ever' on hers..).. and one of the teachers apparently said 'Your mum is SO organised!'... when the reality is that my house is such a disaster zone, currently I'd be embarrassed to have any visitors step foot inside....and given that I don't work, I have no reasonable excuse for being in this state. Only that I'm a walking disaster zone. We haven't even put the tree up this year, and I simply cannot face doing it when we are going away. The older two don't care.. but Zoe does.. and I feel bad about that.

So shhhh... Don't tell anyone I'm actually going nuts. I'll just keep trying to keep up appearances.. making it up as I go along...

Labels: aarrrgghhh, Christmas, daily, sick