The End of Days (Day 343)

Before vacation, there is always a very, very long list of projects to complete; lest you never return from your trip and your family has to have your remains shipped home at their expense and it becomes a whole dramatic thing, involving the media and an investigation. Your work colleagues will be impacted because they won’t be able to find the very important file no has ever looked at, but now must since you are dead under mysterious circumstances on vacation. It goes without saying that your loved ones will fight over your estate, your colleagues will fight over your title and someone will become an alcoholic as a result.

So it is really important to have your affairs in order, including organizing your sock bin and finishing up all those work projects before you go on a vacation.

Well, the end of the calendar year is just like that, except instead of never returning from your holiday break; you will simply go missing, enciting a similar "whole dramatic thing." But; unlike dying on vacation, after the New Year, you return from being missing (like in my fave Doris Day movie, "Move Over Darling") and if anything is out of order, you will return to a life that is a mess, your husband engaged to a very needy woman who does not like children, your work nemsis reading through your emails and the shame as the result of your family and friends,  who sorted through your proverbial sock bin of mismatched and un-darned socks with holes in the toe.

To summarize: December is actually the busiest month of the year filled with emergency projects to wrap up before you go missing on a long term basis and return to a dismantled, chaotic life in which you’ve been shamed absentia. 

And you don’t even have the full month to finish all the things--you'll go missing effective 12/25, so get to it! Here are the 12 things you have to finish before the clock strikes 12 on 12/25

1. The PowerPoint

There will be at least, very formatted, spectacular powerpoint that you must finish before Christmas. In the process of finsihing this, your computer will crash at least 12 times (in honor of 12 Lords A Leaping) and you'll have to start fresh (like the New Year) each time. 

2. The Thematic Wardrobe Organization

This is a month long wardrobing task that must be done! Between your children's theme days at school/sports/dance/church to picking out outfits for family photos to planning Christmas morning matching PJS to making sure you simply have clean underwear, December is the month of costumes! 

3. The “Just a few emails”

There will be just a few emails you have to finish on 12/24 because your colleagues might also go missing and you want to make sure they know how you feel about their Powerpoints in case you don't see them again. Of course, if you send an email, then you get a reply that requires a reply, so you will be sending emails until you hear tiny hooves on the rooftop! 

4. The alignment meetings everyone will forget

Even though your memory will be erased by the long holiday break, it is important to have several alignment meetings. If anything, this is good practice for the new year when you will have a repeat alignment meeting performance. 

5. The wrapping

Those gifts are not going to wrap themselves, are they? 

6. The repairs

Your dishwasher and car do not know it's Christmas. In they don't know much of anything, except how to break during the busiest month of the year. 

7. The medical appointments. 

Like your appliances and vehicles, your body also does not know it is Christmas. Someone will take a stick to the eye or fall ill. 

8. The memories. 

You need to go all 17 Christmas parades and start at least 4 new time consuming memory making traditions each year so your children can grow up with the joy of the holiday season in their hearts and vague, confused memories 

9. The wine. 

Obviously. 

10. The gifts for everyone you actively avoid all year long.

You have to buy all the people you avoid during the year holiday gifts. I avoid teachers, my maids and several other people. I buy them gifts so they don't think I am avoiding them. It is a form of gaslighting via gifting and a family tradition! 

11. The Paperwork

Forms need to be signed! I cannot even name the forms specifically, but I know every year at this time, my signature is required before 12/25 on something important. 

12. The Sock Bin

January is the coldest month of the year! And you need to be prepared with almost matching socks. (Insider tip: just make sure socks are the same height and thickness. They do not need to match in sock or pattern to be considered a match!)