'Twas the night before Christmas ... reprise

Wow. That's all I can say. Wow.

I started just after high noon, with fear and doubt in my heart (neither of which are traditional holiday heart-feelings). But let's call it Miracle on Memorial Road, because the final sallying forth for Christmas 2006 was not fraught with tension and strain and fighting over parking spots and the last {insert hot toy name here} or anything like that. No, really, it was great! (This brings new fear, though ... I might put it all off till Christmas Eve EVERY year if it's going to be this easy!)

I started at Barnes & Noble. Found everything I wanted, up to and including recommendations from a member of their staff who (a) had actually read everything he was telling me was so great, and (b) wasn't 50 pounds of bad attitude in a 25-pound bag, and (c) conducted our chat with a smile on his face that was (or at least seemed to be) totally genuine. WTF? Have I somehow failed to notice a rip in the space-time continuum and sauntered unknowingly into Bizarro World? I felt sure that my next stop would be light-years worse.

Retailer #2 on today's hit parade was Target. Now really, if ever there was a mass-market place that you are certain will be a sh*tstorm in the few hours before the Christmas shopping season officially ends, it's gotta be there, right? Wrong. The shelves were stocked (with notable exceptions of the two new game consoles, but so what, I have one of those ... WOOHOO!), the staff were smiling and helpful without that look in their eyes that reveals that management has force-fed everyone 100 mg of Valium, and hey looka here, I got a great parking space. That's two in a row. What gives? It all had to end soon, of course. It couldn't be any other way.

At the mall, I had to park out in western Iowa (or what passes for it in northwest Oklahoma City). Aha, I thought, this is the telltale sign. It's far enough past noon that everyone's gone home from church, changed clothes, and bolted to the mall (it's okay, Granny, we'll hit the food court when we get there). Gotta quote Steve Martin here: "But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I zipped from shop to shop, quickly finding that which I sought and getting through the payment stage with the greatest of ease (with one notable exception ... Gap had exactly two people at the cash-wrap, leaving four registered unmanned and resulting in a 20-minute wait). Gift boxes were offered! Duplicate receipts were had just for the asking! Customers were warmly wished a happy holiday! Surely this isn't the real world? I nearly decided not to bother with the last place on my to-do list (the grocery store), being overcome with a totally unnatural terror that I'd get caught in the police sweep that would surely follow a fistfight erupting over the last smoked Butterball. How would I explain THAT to my mother?

With fear and loathing in my very core, I ventured off to Albertson's ... when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a FRONT ROW parking space. As I maneuvered the three-ton sport utility vehicle into it, I was absolutely confounded. Entering the store, I found plenty of shopping carts that didn't seem to be mating, followed by a smiling and happy employee dressed like an elf handing out a flyer of today's "last-minute" specials. Alas, they were out of refrigerated sugar-cookie dough and shredded Velveeta! OMG, what's a girl to do? Why, a girl's to ask the nice person cheerfully filling the empty sugar-cookie dough bins with toffee dough, and thence be directed to the baking aisle, where a girl would find plenty of blonde-proof sugar-cookie dough mix, and thence to the pasta aisle, where there were blocks of Velveeta to be had that simply begged to be shredded lovingly at home.

Honestly, I don't know what to think. My husband hasn't pestered me mercilessly until I reveal what's in the packages with his name on, my children have been even better behaved than usual (and really, for the most part they are more angelic than monstrous), and elder daughter's dad (the starter husband) has been quite civil (if not exactly cordial) in chats about how to most effectively transport her from Home A to Home B.

It's been looking a lot like Christmas for weeks (months, in the stores) ... but today, at last, it FEELS like Christmas.

Wishing you and yours the happiest of holidays!