This is the time of year when already overloaded moms the world over add another billion to-dos to their lists. Among them:
- Figuring out what to get for the various and sundry relatives—both hers and his.
- Working through the delicate set of equations necessary to determine if the number and size of gifts presented to each child looks about even, mirrors their wish lists at the given moment and won't cause tears if the children get different gifts and suddenly, one decides that she likes what the other one got instead.
- E-mailing furiously with the other completely overwhelmed moms to see if there's a mutually agreeable tiny chink in the overpacked schedules of holiday shows and pageants, shopping, visits to Santa and cookie baking to squeeze in a little visit. If only to allow said moms to drink coffee/eggnog/tequila and take a minute to breathe.
- Trying to remember who moved in the past year, trying to locate the change-of-address e-mail, then sending a sheepish, "Sorry, I'm a dolt who couldn't take the time to copy and paste your new address into my computer address book...send it again" e-mail to the person.
(And I have found, invariably, that the dads of the world simply don't worry their pretty little heads about this...their brains are way too busy trying to figure out what to get their wives, who don't need or want anything and don't have any time for the foolishness of "hobbies" because they're too busy figuring out what to get their kids and filling out 95 Christmas cards.)
And so, inevitably, with all the work a mom's doing, her brain becomes overheated and melts. Just a little bit. Which allows things to happen as they've happened this week. I've forgotten an appointment or two. I purchased not one, but two of the very same amazing (and not so cheap) gift for my dear husband. (He won't need but one.) I marched away from my daughter's school with her backpack and lunch one day. And I've been calling my cats/dogs/children all by a string of all of their names—Matty/Turkey/Boo/etc./etc. Somewhere in there, I hit on the right one.
I still have many cards to send out, several gifts to buy, and not a single cookie baked. And yet, I've agreed to take on a last-minute, tight-turnaround project for a brand-new client. We'll see if I have any brains left come 2010.

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