Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I despise wrapping presents. "Despise" may not be a strong enough word. I hate it. My friends know that the presents that I give are always in a bag, never wrapped. (If they are lucky, the presents are in an actual gift bag and not the store bag. Most of my friends aren't lucky.) This is rather unfortunate because I love Christmas wrapping PAPER. I personally have Scooby Doo, Strawberry Shortcake, and the Care Bears wrapping paper. I love the paper itself. Just not the process.

So why this hatred? Mainly because I'm not good at it. I hate anything that I'm not good at. This neverending list includes cooking, math, and, yes, wrapping Christmas presents. (Actually, saying that I'm just "not good" at wrapping Christmas presents is yet another understatement. (When did this "question talking" thing start? How annoying. Sorry.)

Anyway, this Christmas card failure is made even worse because my mother is the wrapping paper QUEEN. I mean, this woman spends HOURS wrapping Christmas presents, but the result is nothing less than spectatular. The corners are perfect. There is not a single crease that is out of place. It's irritating. Talk about an inferiority complex!!

Lest you think that I'm exaggerating or am just talking about those weirdly shaped items that no one other than my mother can wrap, I can't even wrap boxes properly. All those blasted corners and whatnot. I can't cut the wrapping paper straight so it's all ragged. Seriously, it looks like a drunk trying to walk a line. I always end up with corners that aren't straight and don't measure up, so there is too much paper at the ends so that the corners all turn the opposite way so somehow white paper is face outward and the Scooby Doo is facing inward and it's all horrible. So my way of solving that is to take scissors to the paper, which then comes all all jagged. Or I end up with not enough paper, so I have to take multiple pieces of paper and cover the box with bits of paper to cover it all. (If I'm lucky, the paper matches. I'm not always lucky).

Anyway, that's why I hate wrapping Christmas presents.

I'm also torn. Christmas is at my mom's. So I have to load my car with the presents I got for my family. All wrapped. Horribly. And here is my question: do I take the (unwrapped) presents I bought myself?

Yes. I admit it. When I go Christmas shopping, I buy stuff for myself. I hate the mall. Hate it. Hate. Hate. Hate it. (Why do you think I put it off Christmas shopping for so long? Because I hate it. I procrastinate what I hate.) So that means that when I'm forced to go -- like when I'm Christmas shopping -- I buy things for myself. This year it includes (drinking) glasses (still plastic, because I can't be trusted with glass ones), some sweaters (as long as "some" is defined as 7), a couple pairs of pants, a few DVDs, and a lot of candles. That might be all I bought myself. I can't remember. Oh, wait, I also discovered how to work ITunes and paying 99 cents per song. So I've been downloading every song imaginable. It's...well, since I don't know how to get the songs off the bloody computer and I don't have an IPod thing.)

Where was I? Oh, I feel like these are Christmas presents, and I should take them as well. OK, not really. I never thought about that. I just wanted to talk about the glasses I got and thought that was a good segway.

I've mentioned that my kitchen is painted yellow, blue, and red. These glasses are red, yellow, blue, green, and purple. Two of each. It is so cool. They kinda match my kitchen in a bright, obnoxious way. I'm thinking about just leaving them on my kitchen table as decoration. (No, I don't use my kitchen table for anything other than to store things on. If you saw my house, you'd be appalled at my lack of housekeeping skills.) Anyway, these glasses LOOK like they are not plastic. Well, maybe they do, but they are NICE plastic, unlike the rest of my drinkware, which are all free plastic. From baseball and football games, from college, and law school. So these are glasses I've actually PAID for. I'm so proud of me. I just wanted to share my self pride with you all on this happy day. (But could you imagine the looks on my parents' faces if I brought over a bunch of presents to me from me? (It would really work better if I said that I wanted to wrap them. They know how much I hate wrapping.))