Why the Doctor's office is dangerous.

The Christmas Season is upon us. Inescapable, really. For the past year or two, I have felt I have done a somewhat inadequate job of celebrating holidays for the kids. Not really inadequate, that's not the right word. But, I guess not to the level I had previously been able to achieve.  I have started selecting the elements I think make it a special "enough" holiday. Actually, particularly for Eldest, every previous thing ever done for the holiday is a terribly important element. I know I have blogged about this before, but for her, if I made a Buche de Noel rolled chocolate sponge cake with dark chocolate ganache carved into a bark pattern, adorned with meringue mushrooms sprinkled with cocoa dust before....for the Christmas Musicale party, with spiced mulled cider and nineteen different types of cookies...then that should be done again annually. It all becomes ritual in her mind. The parties, movies, theater trips, food treats, tree adornments, decorations.....I wonder if there is a crazed part of me that wants to out-ritual that one. At some point will she say "Gosh, Mom, we shouldn't do that every year...it's too much!"
Well, let's face it. She won.
I can't keep up.
So, this year, brilliant me decided to add another special entity destined to make it to the annals of  Cowfeathers "tradition". It all comes of going to the Doctor. Rarely do I ever sit and peruse a magazine, but at the Doctor's office...I spent some quality time with a Martha Stewart Living magazine in the waiting room, this, friends, is dangerous. MSL is not about time saving. I think the tag line is something like "Living Graciously( through Herculean effort of a large staff of creative, impeccably dressed, impossibly talented people who don't sleep)." But they make it seem so, doable.
So, you can blame it on the Doctor. I decided it was brilliant to give each child an advent gift and bible verse each day in the build up to Christmas Day.
Easy. All I need is 72 tiny, lightweight perfect gifts, 72 gift bags, 72 advent bible verses...and a place to put them all. It took about an hour. Yep. That's all. You should do it too. Really. Easy.
 Aren't I all Martha. Stupid Doctor. That is three weeks I'll not see again. I hope the children remember it always.

They are hung in a window, because I have no wall space large enough, and I don't want the dogs to eat the bags, and all these bags conceal the fact that I haven't cleaned the windows since the corn was harvested.
But, although a picture is worth a thousand words, it also hides a whole lotta secrets.
So, here is the rest of the story. The daybed and window look great, huh?
If I take a picture from farther back...

That's right. Nowhere to sit. The green chair is the designated holding space for the shoe boxes going to the troops for Christmas. The ratty floral chair (I believe in the past year the kids have managed to pull a quarter of the stuffing through holes in the arms) is the holding space for the bags of socks, bottles of Chantilly and packets of hankies going to church for the Christmas Party at the old folk's home. And, turn around.....

The Sofa is the staging area for the bags of clothes and toys going to the family of 6 our 4-H club adopted for our Christmas Giving Party.
I guess, who has time to sit?
There is decorating, baking, shopping and wrapping to do. Trees to pick out, cut down and bring inside, a six foot wreath to create to hang on the barn and can gingerbread be made with rice flour?
But, if nothing else, at least the advent of Christmas is ready.
Now, to go find a late lunch, hook up the trailer, dry off the big black horse and start getting prepared for our jumping lesson- in an indoor arena, the only thing not 4" deep in water and mud. I bet Martha has a indoor arena and a staff that makes it happen. Wonder what she does in the waiting room at the Doctor. Oh, that's right, she probably has a Doctor on staff.