I have one major project to work on, one deadline, and do you think I can open the document and get to work?

I think Christmas is getting to me. I’m not the sentimental type by a long-shot, but there’s so much going on, so many advertisements spamming my email, so many postings about people baking and shopping that I’m feeling like I must be a total scrooge, and that maybe I shouldn’t wait this year until Christmas Eve to do all my shopping in one day.

I’ve done that many times. I HATE shopping, get nauseous in mall air, and Christmas songs make my head pound. I’ll have a honed-to-the-last-detail list, start at 10:00 AM when the mall doors open, then rush through the stores before the crowds get too thick and I have a panic attack. Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little bit, but only very little.

What’s the difference this year? Maybe I’m a bit burned out with stress. Back-to-back books and facing the end of the last contract I have to fulfill. Always a worrisome place to be for a writer.

And it might have to do with the little face of a four-year-old who likes to sneak into my closets because she knows mommy hides her presents there, but my closets only have shoes and clothes and stuff.

Enough. Time to get to work. I wish you luck wrapping up your shopping, and be thinking of me, the last person on the last day before Christmas looking for that perfect gift as I whoosh by with my shopping cart and scoop the present into the basket.