I have only myself to blame

Raise your hand if you've finished your Christmas shopping.

Me, neither.

The problem is that I hate to shop. I think I may have mentioned that in passing once or twice. The only stores I really like to spend time in are bookstores. (Man, am I really that boring??? Don't answer that.)

Anyhoo, I hate shopping, so naturally I did it again. I put my Christmas shopping off until the absolute last possible minute. Which is to say, today. December 23rd.

I know when I venture out into the retail wild tonight--alone, because nobody in my family is stupid enough to do this with me--that I'm going to be irritable, annoyed, and snappish. I'm going to shout ugly things at people who get in my way. I'm going to give death glares to half the population of Kansas City. I'm going to growl and cry and complain and probably bang my head against a door.

Then I'll get to Best Buy, and park, and get out of my car, and try to be my usual charming self. It ain't easy.

What is it that makes me put this off year after year? Why do I do this to myself? I have something like four gifts yet to buy. Gifts I could have taken care of months ago, if only I'd made myself do it. It's not like I haven't run errands all year long, for crying out loud. I've been to the various retail establishments in my area bazillions of times, and yet I find myself once again shopping at the last freakin' minute for Christmas gifts. What is my problem???

The truth is, I'm not very good at paying attention. Every year I resolve to listen closely and make mental notes when His Nibs says, "You know, I could really use a subscription to Couch Potato Digest."

Or when Daredevil explains that the reason his pants are full of holes is that the wheels and bearings on his skateboard need constant replacement, which he can't do because he doesn't get to his favorite skate shop often enough, and since the wheels and bearings go bad so quickly, he gets flung to the ground a lot, which causes him to skid, which explains the holes in his pants.

Or when Drama Princess wails again that she has listened to every song on her iPod hundreds of times and she needs an iTunes card so she can get new songs, oh and also she must have that really rad awesome t-shirt from the Mitchell Davis website, you know, the one that features the Post-It Monster.

I hear this stuff all the time. I just don't listen to it. (Convenient Excuse #2,112: I don't understand a lot of it.) So I'm stuck doing last-minute Christmas shopping two days before Christmas. While His Nibs and the kidlets are getting glassy-eyed staring at the television or computer screen (depends on who we're talking about here), I'll be out there with the rest of the idiots who somehow couldn't be bothered to stick to their New Year's resolution to get one or two gifts every month, stash them away, and have it all done before Halloween. Who am I kidding? I make that resolution every single year.

How about you? Are you any good at paying attention? Because if you are, then you've no doubt figured out by now that I'm so disorganized (distracted?), if I did do my shopping throughout the year, I'd hide my gift stash from myself and then have to do the last-minute frenzy anyway.

I'll bet by now, Santa's elves are on vacation with their families. I'll bet that sleigh is already packed and ready to go. I'll bet the North Pole toy factories are shut down for the holidays.

I'll bet I just re-post this blog same time next year.

Merry Christmas, everybody!