Is your holiday perfect?

By guest blogger, Wendy Bentien

It happens every year around September. I will hear of someone who is already planning for Christmas. You know the type, they love to put on Facebook on the 1st of October “Well, Christmas shopping is done now time to relax”. My first reaction is to smack them; my second reaction is to swear I am going to get on top of it this year. This will finally be the year where I am not running around at the last minute just grabbing presents from the “As seen on Tv” section of Walgreens. This will be the year that I channel Martha Stewart and make all the teacher handmade gifts of roasted nuts and mini coffee cakes wrapped in paper that I made from scratch.

My house will be decorated before all my neighbors. Just like trash day I don’t actually know what day this is supposed to happen without going in my driveway and looking to the left. They would keel over from shock if I beat them to it one year. Maybe I will go all Clark Griswold and set the whole light show to Manheim Steamroller music that the cars can tune their radios to. The traffic would be immense on my little street. My Holiday cards will have a lovely professionally done photograph and not a hodge podge of random pictures that I make at the last minute and send on the 24th of December.

All these dreams live in my head until exactly Thanksgiving. Being a foodie I am consumed with this one meal for a month so by the time everyone is making their lists to go out at Midnight and get the best deals I am exhausted. I would rather stick toothpicks in my eyes than go to the mall the weekend following Turkey day although I know I should.
At this point I am just frozen with shopping fear. I still don’t buy anything, or drag out the decorations. I call defeat. I feel like a failure.

Then I remember Amazon.com and free two day shipping. I put the kids to bed then sit with my computer and a large glass of wine and click away. I morph into Mrs Claus and within two hours I am DONE. I even went so far as to have wrapping paper and tape mailed to me.

I have come to terms with this. I will never be one of those women who have all their ducks in a row. I might only have 2 in the row at any given time but you know what? I am happy. It isn’t a contest. When my kids run down the stairs Christmas morning they will be jumping for joy. They have no idea that their Barbie camper came from the UPS man instead of me buying it at the toy store. They are kids. They just want all the crazy twist ties taken off the cardboard immediately and to play with it. They just want us all to be together one big happy family.

So try and not get too consumed with making it perfect. Make it perfect your way, which just might include doing it at the last minute with free shipping.

Happy Holidays.

It’s our favorite time of year in Smartyland ~ that time when we give and give BIG we will! This one will put the swag in your swagger this holiday season as we kick off Santa’s Smarty Swag Bag holiday giveaway. That Claus dude and his pink & green elves were fiercely Smarty this year and put some of the B-E-S-T swag in the ‘ole holiday bag for one lucky reader. Make sure you are signed up for our e-newsletter for your chance to win $600 from our coolest Smarty friends in town! Click here to read ALL the details on this merry treat!