I may not sound like this in a few days, but...

For a family that's fixing to move less than a week before Christmas, we're ticking along pretty calmly here.

I took my commute on ... I think it was Monday ... to get myself from "How on EARTH am I ever going to get the girls presents they'll like and care about for Christmas?" to a simple, realistic and pleasing plan for how to do exactly that.

I shopped for stocking stuffers on my way home from work for the last couple of days, and I'm wrapping them this evening. I've also picked up a couple of immediate essentials for the new house, like an on-demand heater for the shower (most Costa Rican homes, including the one we're moving to, have no centralized hot water) and a pack of compact fluorescent bulbs. For the most part, the things we're going to have to acquire will come afterwards: curtains by me and some extra table/shelf action by Bob are the main ones.

We can't get a tree till after we move, so there's no dealing with that till next week. We've made a bunch of Moravian stars to decorate it with, we can string some popcorn, and I'll buy some lights and red balls. Voila, pretty, homemade tree.

The neighbor who sold us Bob's fridge when he moved here actually wants it back, so we don't have to figure out how to sell that or whether to move it.

I don't see doing a whole lot of packing until this weekend, since it's such a nearby thing and we can take the small stuff over ourselves either before or before and after the furniture goes on Sunday. Not like everything has to be boxed on a deadline for someone else to deal with.

The things I most want to have taken care of, aren't really in my hands. I was worried about scheduling with the girls while I'm off work, so I wrote the email that needed to be written, and now I just need to wait for a response. I'm a little concerned about the painting in the house, but it all sounded really good on Tuesday. Hopefully there's no problem there.

So...I guess I'll just get back to wrapping the stocking stuff and maybe make sure the wine from the other night hasn't gone off.

Came back to add:

I realized after I hit Publish, got the wine, and went back to the wrapping that the reason having a glass of wine while wrapping the gifts felt so right was that, nine years ago about this time, I was wrapping Christmas presents with Mom in my apartment in High Point, and she offered to pour us some wine. I only had a little because the big present we had for everyone that year (which Mom of course didn't yet know) was the news that I was expecting Julia, who was born the following August.