Surely, Santa is a woman.

Ask any one of my family members about my gift-giving habits, and they'll let out a belly laugh.

You see, I'm not exactly always on top of things when it comes to buying presents for people. My sister Beth's birthday, for example, was in September, and I've yet to get her something for it. I'll hopefully have found the perfect thing by the time I see her for Christmas. Hopefully.

At this time, late on December 8, I have not yet bought one single gift for anyone for Christmas. In the past, that fact wouldn't have stressed me out a bit. In the past, however, my family has celebrated our holiday closer to January 1st because of work schedules. This year, I'm not so lucky. This year, we're having Christmas on Christmas.

Another cause for concern is the fact that I've got a whole 'nother family to buy for this go round. Another mom-who-has-everything, another sister, a father/sports fanatic, and (for the first time) a brother. Getting married has basically doubled the gift load, and in response I should've doubled the time I take to shop. I haven't. I think I'm in trouble.

Along those same lines, I think I've officially decided that Christmas is NOT a holiday for women. Take my post on decorating, for example. Cal does his expected part: getting the boxes out of the attic. My tasks, however, include hanging the wreaths, decorating the mantles (we have four fireplaces), creating a centerpiece for our dining room table, hanging the ornaments -just so- on our oh-so-wonderfully-gaudy tree, setting up the nativity scenes, placing holiday pillows on the couch, etc etc. You see, I hope, my point.

Tonight we had a Christmas party with my Sunday School class. I spent most of my Saturday buying ingredients at the grocery store, shopping for white elephant gifts, making an appetizer to take, and wrapping our white elephant gifts. What did we come home with from the "Chinese Auction" portion of the evening? A sports trivia game and a pocket knife. Cal is thrilled.

I think about Christmas at both mine and Cal's parents' houses. Our moms go all out with not only the meals, the tree, the decorations, and the cleaning, but also the gifts. Oh my goodness, the gifts. Mom will have 5 presents under the tree to unwrap: one from each of her kids, and one from my dad. Some of these are still in the Target/Walmart/Rayann's Christian Bookstore bag in which they came. We, on the other hand, literally spend hours opening our tens of thousands (slight exaggeration) of beautifully and lovingly packaged goodies, each with a handmade ribbon or bow to top off the gorgeous paper. She even color-codes the gifts that need to be opened simultaneously, such as the Veggie Tales Nativity set that we all four got a couple of years ago. Cal's house works pretty much the same way.

Anyway, this post really has no point, and it's just full of my musings from the last few days, particularly ever since I had my breakdown over the house-decorating last weekend. I should clarify that Cal is doing everything that I ask him to do and more, so it's not as if he's being a jerk while I do all the work. It is, really, stuff that the woman is just expected to do. Stuff that wouldn't ever get done if it were left up to the male gender.

Aren't we glad that it's not?