PEONY MAGAZINE Dec. 2016 | Page 11

The first thing we do as moms is do some recon, plan out the attack. I know I am not the only one that takes their kids to the store or gives them a copy of the Target holiday catalog and has them pick and choose or circle and star the things that they want, which let's be real is like the whole thing. Once we have an idea of what our kids want we complete a review, what can be counted out and what do they really want. All of this can easily happen before we even get to December. With Black Friday you can forget about recon and skip straight to the ambush and sometimes buy everything you needed and more in one night.

If you didn't go all out and shop on Black Friday. You spend most of December running to 10 different stores to find the things you wanted, decide to take up the daunting task of making gifts, or worst of all waiting for packages from UPS that always say delivered but somehow never end up in your hands. If you make it this far and some won't you spend 2 days straight getting paper cuts from the wrapping paper and waste a bajillion rolls of tape because somehow you never learned how to wrap a present correctly. Oh but your marathon has not stopped there, you are only on the 16th mile and still needing that second wind to get you to the night(mare) before Christmas.

"Now that I have a child and I'm sure anyone with little elves of their own running around the house can see that Christmas is like a marathon."

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