It’s probably a blessing I always forget this week is like this.

I must say – I’ve been pretty good about managing the Christmas Craziness this year. When nights are too hectic at Casa de Katie, I don’t try to force the Family Advent activity down everyone’s throat; I just accept that everyone would be happier (and I would be far less anxious) if we just “made it up” some other night. I haven’t scheduled too many deviations from our schedule. I’ve remembered that we are all better off without too much Christmas Craziness. It’s been blissful.

Except.

I forgot what a nightmare the last week of school can be. There are teacher gifts to make, cookies to bake, plates of goodies to assemble, last-minute snack assignments for holiday parties, last-minute gifts to buy for last-minute gift swaps… And let’s not forget last-minute projects to finish because Mama hoarded two weeks of vacation time, oh yeah!

So this week has been Quite Hectic. Monday we baked peppermint kiss sugar cookies – and I made the sweet discovery that Bee is better at cookie rolling than I am. Excellent! We made chocolate chip cookies, too. Tuesday night I made two pans of fudge to cool in the fridge. Wednesday we made cuppacakes for Gracie’s school party. (Bee came home with a note that said her teacher was providing a hot dog lunch and snacks for the kids; in lieu of food, each child was asked to bring $2. I sent $5 – do you think that conveys to the teacher how much I wanted to make-out with her for such a brilliant idea?) Thursday – wait, crap, was that just last night?! – we made Rice Krispie squares and then took our loot from the week and assembled goodie packages.

Yeah, it’s kinda crazy, but we have a lot of people to thank. There’s one for each teacher, one for Gracie’s English/Social Studies teacher from last year who I’m sucking up to so she’ll request Bee for next year, one for the librarian Gracie works with, one for the nurse because she and Gracie see each other so often, and one for the admins in the office. Now if only there was a way to leave a plate of goodies as a sacrifice to parking lot spaces…

I wish I could say the worst was behind us – and I’m not just talking about having to getting to help with the school Christmas parties later today. A busy week is behind us but a busier weekend waits. Tonight we have to make some more cookie dough to chill overnight, tomorrow morning I have to drop Gracie at her friend’s house for a birthday party, take Bee Christmas shopping, then I have to pick Gracie up from the party (45 minutes away, at a boutique), and rush to Stepmom’s house where we’ll have our annual Christmas cookie bake-a-thon with all the girl cousins, aunts, and Grandma. Then on Sunday the girls are in a concert at church, so I’ll get to go see how well they sing (and prevent Bee from carrying out her fondest wish: rigging a string to swing from the ceiling. No, she has not seen Sister Act. Apparently mischief is genetically coded in that one.)

Busy, busy, busy! But if I can just get through Sunday, we’ll be thatmuchcloser! to Christmas, and then THATMUCHCLOSER! to when Kim comes to visit! And who wouldn’t want to be a few crazy days closer to all of that?!