Rush job

So what happens when (a) the Christmas cards you ordered don’t arrive, (b) your evenings in November are full of family and or management visits, and (c) you slack off while taking a vacation the second week of December?

The obvious answer is that you rush around like a maniac the third week of December in hopes that the cards you send out will get there the fourth week of December.

Yeesh.

So last night I pounded out fifty-odd Christmas cards for our nearest and dearest. The quite-not-so-near-or-dear might not get any this year, dagnabbit. Yes, I know that’s a big Christmas card list (for some — for others it’s tiny). But we both have large families and extended friends that need at least that annual communique …

Oh, frell. Didn’t do the 3rd Annual Hill/Kleerup Christmas Letter. Oh, well — let ’em read my blog archives.

So, anyway, I got most of the ones that have to go out done. But the ones that go to local folks who also get an invite to our Twelfth Night party in January couldn’t go out yet. (Yes, because the November and December insanity is not enough, we’ve decided to extend it another month. Or two.) That’s because I didn’t have the invites finished, which I did this morning, so tonight I get to do more cards, with invites.

(And why is it that so many people ask me what the heck Twelfth Night is? I mean, I give a little explanation inside the invite, which nobody reads, but you’d think someone would remember the Twelve Days of Christmas, or have heard of the Shakespearean play or something. Or am I being more pendantic than usual?)

Of course, at lunch I need to go out and by frelling stamps. Not looking forward to that. Not that the lines will be too long, since I don’t expect to get out to lunch until about 1, and I have a number of other errands to do, too.

And perhaps I should pick up some more cards, too, because there are probably fifty-odd more folks who really should get one from us.

(I am the Card Sender in our household. Margie never prioritizes it up as compulsively high as I do, but she always thanks me very nicely when I get them finished.)

Of course, card/invite work this evening will be highly constrained, since I have my church vestry meeting tonight, and we have to debate and vote on the budget, which I suspect will mean a long evening. Bleah.

We have some things we need to mail/send/ship, too. I don’t have them with me, which will probably mean a separate trip to the post office, or else a trip out there in California to send things after the fact.

And, yes, I know I’ve now passed the Dreaded Deadline after which the USPS doesn’t guarantee that the cards will arrive before Christmas. I don’t care. If they arrive sometime before the end of the year, I will have done my Annual Duty.

In addition to our cards, and invites (and now I have to figure out who at the office to give invites to — my contact with the local operations over the last year has been seriously reduced, but some folks I know want them, and I can’t give invites to them without giving invites to some other folks), we have our Generic Gifts, which are basically things we give our office mates (they have sometimes extended out to other local folks, but not this year, due to various other gifting plans). We have done zero shopping for the Generic Gift this year, but fortunately we had some parts left over from previous years, so Margie could cover her office (this is her last day in), and then spend her lunch shopping for parts for my office mates.

Have I mentioned we go back out of town on Thursday night?

Oh, well, two bits of good news. First, I got the DVD drive on my notebook working again. I think that’s a good thing. And, second, I just found out I have a phonecon on Friday morning at 8, which will mean no sleeping in, but will mean I can (and will) not chew up any vacation time that morning …