Christmas kerfuffle

The run-up to Christmas was hectic and frantic, but I'm bummed that I wasn't able to collect some photographic evidence of the process.

To illustrate how frantic it was: I only started shopping for gifts at 6 p.m. on the eve of Christmas. It wasn't a totally bad idea, since the customer queues were short, the mall wasn't packed, and the sales people wanted desperately for the day to end so they could go back to their families, and thus they were quick to assist.

What was stressful, though, was the gift-wrapping. In my attempt to cut down on time, I thought I'd do the wrapping myself. Big mistake. The small, boxed stuff were easy enough to tackle. But when I got to the irregularly-shaped, gargantuan-sized gifts, I was floored. My younger brother was counting me down to midnight, and I was sweating buckets in a sea of gift wrappers and Scotch tape.

So I managed to finish my Christmas task by putting aside the gifts for people who I knew were not showing up for dinner. But two people showed up unannounced in the middle of our meal. Their gifts were still lying in my room, unwrapped, and I dashed upstairs to do a dance with the wrappers and Scotch tape anew. I managed to finish wrapping just before they left.

Of course, at the end of the frenzy, I thought I should have planned my tasks earlier. But to be honest, I quite enjoyed the commotion. I needed to do something, and the kitchen was not part of my jurisdiction. So at the end it all, I enjoyed the experience. I was happy to put big smiles on people's faces. And I had a very Merry Christmas with my loved ones. I hope you all did, too!