Each Year The Same

We've reached the part of the preparations for Christmas that I dread. Not the decorating or the shopping or the wrapping of gifts. Instead I dread the package delivery service and grocery shopping.

Considering that I live overseas from friends and family and that we do most of our Christmas shopping online, the package delivery folks come by here a lot. We're now at the point in the season where packages come virtually every day. And as nothing is perfect, I can't always count on the package delivery folks coming at the same time each day. If one day a package arrives at 10:30 and I'm expecting another to come the next day, I can't bank on the second one being delivered at 10:30. The person who normally delivers packages to my building is a lady and she's seen me in every state of dress, my hair in curlers, with wet hair, with dust rags and mops in hand - she's even seen me without my eyebrows penciled in. The only other people allowed to see me without my eyebrows penciled in are related to me by blood or marriage. Of course waiting for packages to come cramps up my morning schedule and it's only a matter of time before I get it wrong and she comes to bring me goodies while I'm in the shower deep conditioning my hair.

Tomorrow I'll have to do the last big trip to the grocery store before Christmas. I have my list made but it doesn't stop me from fearing that I'll forget something and either have to venture to the grocery store on Christmas Eve morning to get butter or avail myself of a gas station mini-mart. Or even worse, the mini-mart in the train station where a half pound of butter will run you in the neighborhood of $4. And all grocery shopping - anything that requires me to use my car, really - must be complete by noon. 1:00 at the very latest. Else I risk not having any place to park when I get back home because all of the parking in on my street fills up fast once the Christmas market opens. I'll be running the gauntlet of getting to the grocery store and back before it's too late for me to get a parking space but not going so early that I miss package delivery.

After Christmas my frustrations will change. That's when it moves to getting rid of the cardboard boxes that once housed all the things that were shipped to me and dodging fourteen year old boys with New Years firecrackers.