My Holiday Distractions

This holiday is distracting me.

I asked Google about Holiday Distractions, and all I got was “They Can Be Dangerous!”

No joke! OK. I will confess to running at least one red light as I drove down Cherokee in Sallisaw trying to remember if I had enough gifts for all the great-grandkids. I can’t keep up with all the great-grandkids. Their numbers keep increasing. I’m gonna’ have to make a list. And that’s why I ran right through that red light. Thank goodness there were no cars coming, and none of Sallisaw’s finest close by.

I will not confess to all the yellow lights I’ve sneaked through in Fort Smith. That city must have some sort of camera that focuses on my vehicle and which changes the green to yellow just as I enter the intersection. But I can guarantee I’m not the only one complaining about that issue.

Oops. Sorry. Got distracted.

Then there’s the Christmas gift stash piled up in my spare bedroom. As most of my two or three readers know, and all my family and friends know, I start Christmas shopping on Dec. 26 every year. I just cannot pass up a good deal!

While rummaging through the stash just this week I came across multiple items bought 12 months ago that I had forgotten about. Oops. Now I’ve got to count gifts again to make sure all the great-grandkids have the same number of Christmas presents. Dang, I’ve got to start another list. How distracting!

Then there’s the reason I was rummaging through the stash. I lost a gift. Funny thing though, it wasn’t a Christmas gift. It is a birthday gift purchased in August for a good friend who suffers through her birthday in mid-December. Since it’s so close to Christmas, I try to make her birthday gift extra special so her birthday isn’t passed over for the Christmas gifting.

I loved that gift. It was bought with good thoughts and purpose. And now I can’t find it! Friend’s birthday gift got lost in the Christmas gift shuffle, that being the pile of stuff in the spare bedroom.

I got distracted, OK? I distinctly remember gazing at that chosen gift, and patting myself on the back for making such a good choice. Then I put it away in a safe place for my friend’s special day. I got distracted. Now I can’t remember where I put that gift.

I have searched the pile of purchased gifts and found all those gifts bought 12 or more months ago. I have even searched under the chairs and couch in the living room to make sure birthday gift did not just fall off and get shoved under something and out of sight. Amazingly, that’s where I found a wrapped Christmas gift that must have gotten lost last year. I remember asking Darling Daughter how she liked that gift and her “What gift?” response. I just assumed someone else picked it up by mistake.

I have decided it is now a gift to me.

But I have become distracted, again.

With friend’s birthday looming, I gave up on the great search for the lost gift, and went shopping. Yes, my friend does have a birthday gift but not the one of first choice. Maybe she’ll get it for Christmas, this year, or the next, or even the next, or whenever I find it if I don’t get distracted.