I had today all planned out.

Cody and I would sleep in…make some coffee…have some breakfast…and go finish our Christmas shopping. We would laugh and pick out the perfect gifts and top it all off with a peppermint twist mocha whatevertheyrenamedit at Starbucks. We’d skip happily back home, wrap all our amazing gifts in front of the fire while we watched It’s a Wonderful Life, and goggle at how much money we SAVED and how we can’t wait to shop last minute for our Christmas gifts next year….you can probably guess where this is going….

My plan is swiftly deteriorating. (Not that it was too realistic to begin with).

First of all, Cody ended up having to work today. So I woke up with him and have not been able to go back to sleep. Secondly, about five other errands have been added to my already packed shopping schedule…pick up my contacts, drop crap off at goodwill, return a gift at Dick’s, and go to Spek’s to look for doggie beds and see what days we can take Hershey in to get his nails clipped.

So here I sit. Stalling. Blogging. Emailing. Web-surfing. Re-filling my coffee cup. Still stalling.

Every year I say I’m going to do Christmas different, and I don’t. We’re not doing presents this year! We’re going to buy a goat for an impoverished family for everyone this year! We’re going to MAKE gifts this year! We’ll BAKE our gifts this year! We’ll RE-GIFT this year! Because right about now…when I’m scrambling to find nice things and dreading using my debit card more in one day then I have the whole year and then looking at my account online tomorrow…I know it’s not about Christmas. It’s about making sure my gifts even out with what I get…it’s about finding something for someone that a) they don’t already have or b) that will excite them for a few days.

Not that nice gifts are bad at all. I just don’t want to buy into the whole mess. I want my family and friends to know I love them, and I know these gifts don’t express that nearly as much as what I actually feel.

So we’ll just get through this season and next year…NEXT year will be different.

“…the people living in darkness
      have seen a great light;
   on those living in the land of the shadow of death
      a light has dawned.”  Matthew 4:16