Oh god. Only 12 more days until Christmas. I’ve achieved panic mode. It might also be that I’m displacing some of my anxiety over tae kwon do purple belt testing tomorrow, but I don’t think so.

I have so much irrelevant holiday-related stuff to do — shopping for gifts in person and on-line (family, kids, Santa, teachers, yah yah yah), a few visits and small dinner get-togethers, meals, mince pies, cookies… I feel desperately that we need more bling on the front lawn. None of it is worthy of complaining about, but I don’t let that stop me. I get very little time to myself to accomplish things in secret.

The one really amazing thing that I never have to panic about is this, at least so far: Jesse and Nick don’t go around hunting for gifts. I don’t understand it. They don’t open closed doors and closets. When I put a sign on a door that says “DO NOT ENTER (don’t even think about it),” they actually obey.

It’s awesome. I have some enormous stuff stashed in obvious places already. I feel confident the kids won’t find anything, because they’ll never look. But I think it also means there’s something seriously wrong with them.

I better make an extra appointment with the therapist next week.