{"id":9529,"date":"2008-12-01T13:04:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T13:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/momservations.wordpress.com\/2008\/12\/01\/on-your-mark-get-set-christmas"},"modified":"2008-12-01T13:04:28","modified_gmt":"2008-12-01T13:04:28","slug":"on-your-mark-get-set-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/momservations.com\/index.php\/2008\/12\/01\/on-your-mark-get-set-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"On Your Mark, Get Set, Christmas!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">The turkey bones and leftovers have been made into soup. The relatives have packed up and headed home. And the kids have gone back to school after a 10 day Thanksgiving break (but only for a week of half-days because of conferences &ndash; curses!).<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Instead of sinking into a nice comfy chair with The Sacramento Bee (like that plug?) and a nice hot cup of cocoa to reward myself for an exhausting job well done, December 1<sup>st<\/sup> has had the nerve to show up already.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Before I&rsquo;ve even had time to stretch, warm up, or plot my plan of attack the gun has gone off I&rsquo;ve been left in the dust of tinsel and tangled Christmas lights. Time is already running out and the clock has just started. The race is on &ndash; 24 days until Christmas!<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Let&rsquo;s see what I need to do to catch back up:<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top:0;\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Put away fall\/Thanksgiving decorations<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Get Christmas decorations out of storage (10 tubs for inside, 3 for outside &ndash; I&rsquo;m currently attending Overdecorators Anonymous meetings for this little problem)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Get Christmas tree<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Have kids help decorate tree (very fun, but this slows the pace waaaay down)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Have kids help put out Christmas decorations<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Finish decorating rest of house after kids get bored (takes nearly a week)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Nag Hubby to get outside lights and decorations up (takes nearly a week)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Take the perfect Christmas card picture (after threatening kids to look happy and perfect)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Get Christmas cards made<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Address and mail Christmas cards (think about axing fringe friends and distant relatives pleading carpal tunnel but really because I&rsquo;m too cheap to buy more stamps)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Take kids to see Santa and annual Santa picture<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Start working on redirecting kids to what Santa is really going to bring them<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Start Christmas shopping (after making a list and checking it twice, then fainting)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Start Christmas wrapping (I say this every year and every year I&rsquo;m pulling an all nighter before we leave for the relatives)<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Start Christmas cookie baking for cookie plate gifts<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Make sugar cookies with the kids<\/font> <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Debate the fun\/memories to mess\/frustration ratio as I put my kitchen back together<\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">And just to make things a little more interesting and because I obviously have holiday masochistic tendencies:<\/font><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top:0;\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Plan\/prepare\/execute a Christmas party <\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">Okay, so that&rsquo;s just to get me back in the race and on pace for another joyful, memorable, magical, overload those circuits, deck the heck out the halls, and slurp the last drop of eggnog from the punch bowl blowout Christmas.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">You know, because I have nothing else to do.<\/font><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"3\"><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt;font-family:&quot;\"> <\/span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin:0;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align:center;margin:0;\" align=\"center\"><font size=\"4\">?<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>?<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>?<\/font><span>&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The turkey bones and leftovers have been made into soup. The relatives have packed up and headed home. And the kids have gone back to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>On Your Mark, Get Set, Christmas! - Kelli M. 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