Christmas Crazy

There is a special kind of crazy that I go every year, 'round about this time. I like to call it Christmas Crazy.
It's wholly self-induced, I'll admit. I get insane ideas like hand-making all Christmas presents and making sugared pecans as a gift for all my children's teachers. When I start counting teachers, I realize that there are also teachers that are in charge of the clubs they're in and a ballet teacher and music teachers and oh-so-many more adults that pour themselves into my children. That's a lot of pecans.
I look at my wrapping paper and decide there is no way I'll ever find satisfactory gift tags and I have to design some myself. Then the search begins for just-the-right Old-English-style fonts and frames. And I have to figure out how to make it print in just the right spot on both sides of the page...you know, so the front is for decorating and the back says "To:" and "From:" and all that.
And if I decide to make some lotion and soap (ha - "if!") I remember that I always wanted to try some with honey and beeswax from my neighbor's bees. Then I can't let go of the idea. But the labels I already have for lotion don't go with bees. And I start looking for royalty-free clip art and none of it works just right, so I pull out some sharpies and Emma's watercolors and illustrate my own bees and honey.

See what I mean?

I think this special kind of crazy deserves more research.
It needs medication with embarrassing commercials that you don't want to see while your children are in the room.
I could probably star in the commercials.

I can see it now -
The commercial opens innocuously, a mother and daughter shopping downtown and walking into the fresh foods market in search of lunch. Strains of Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" are wafting through the produce section. The mother looks a little frazzled (except for her hair, which was just cut and looks fabulous). There are dark circles under her glazed and glassy eyes and she stumbles a little bit, bumping into the apple bin. But she is still smiling a slightly crooked grin. Every few seconds she sort of giggles a bit. They are wearing holiday-inspired clothing and are chatting and looking like they're enjoying a girl's day out.

The voice-over says, "Holiday cheer is an important part of family life. But if your impulses to celebrate tend to interrupt your ability to function normally..."

(cut to scene of husband and son, toting brooms and cleaning buckets, buried in a mountain of crumpled papers, paintbrushes, glue and glitter)

"talk to your doctor soon about (insert name of new and experimental drug). You don't want to spend another holiday season like this:"

(Cut to scene of mother and daughter standing in the check-out at the market, salads in hand. The mother has a horrified look on her face, having just realized she had inadvertently belted out, "And so I'm offering in this simple phra-a-a-se, to kids from one to ninety-two," with her distinct and out-of-practice formal vibrato, and the cashier was staring at her).

Not that anything like that has happened lately.