It's Christmas, so by all means, throw some walnuts on it!

It's Christmas Eve. There is no way I have enough time to write, but my coffee is still warm and tasting of sweet, sweet gingerbread CoffeeMate and it truly is the season of giving - regardless of how much time I have. 

My parents arrived safely yesterday. George H.W. and Barbara were wisked away in a government motorcade on the runway yesterday, so my father couldn't risk getting arrested by the secret service in an attempt to get me an autograph. My mom did manage to talk to a Secret Service agent at the gate who was just being extra sure the motorcade left the runway safely. My mother talks to everyone. The former president and first lady apparently like commercial airlines...I'd still demand Air Force One. 

Either way. I spent all of yesterday being one of the mothers you see on a 1950s television show. I scrubbed tubs and toilets, chased little Marley with the vacuum cleaner, Swiffer wet jetted and spent several hours baking Christmas cookies. I'm still not finished with the cookies, but I have a house that would pass any white glove test and boxes of cookies and enough powdered sugar to have this house sorely mistaken for a crack den if the wrong company came over. 

Tomorrow, the boyfriend's family members are coming over. I'm not sure how many, or who exactly, but they're coming. 

Now. I'll give you a brief look into an only child-style Christmas. My family moved from Rhode Island to North Carolina when I was four. When we moved, we left all of our extended family in New England. Christmas Day in my house, for as long as I can remember, has been incredibly chill. We never really had location obligations, unless it was across the street to a friend's holiday gathering of sorts. Even when I moved to Maryland, our Christmas mornings started whenever our biological clocks told them to start, we opened our gifts with the sweet company of coffee and some sort of breakfast. 

I never did the holiday parody of coffee at this house, brunch at this house, cookies here and turkey dinner and vodka drinks there (everywhere?). I have never had time obligations on Christmas Day. 

Tomorrow morning, I play Christmas hostess at 10 a.m. This means I have to be up, bright-eyed and pretty, baking some sort of coffee treat and have fresh-ground coffee brewing and ready to go. This throws off my entire Christmas flow of opening gifts and doing nothing. It's an adjustment that few people understand I have to make, and I am confused as to why on Earth people can do this to themselves year after year. 

Maybe things will go better than expected. I suppose this is finally what most people consider a "normal" Christmas Day. 

I'm still excited, don't get me wrong. I get into this time of year more than most people do. Maybe the holiday bebop won't be as bad as I'm anticipating. (When all you have to go off of is a very sit-com Christmas, you have a right to be terrified) 

However, I should get to showering, last minute shopping and wrapping and cookie baking and grocery fetching. 

If any of you are doing any big shopping today (shame on you), please consider the impact any number of these last-minute gifts will have on your loved one's holiday before you make a purchase in a pinch.