You’re gonna need more than 12 days

  • Julie Muhlstein / Herald Columnist
  • Saturday, November 24, 2001 9:00pm
  • Local News

Tick-tick-tick. Hear that? It’s the holiday clock.

No use pulling a pillow over your head. No use trying to shut it off. The holiday clock won’t stop.

Tick-tick-tick.

It will only get louder.

There’s still time. That’s the good news today. You and I have 30 days until Christmas.

Last year, I bought ingredients to make my father’s favorite confection — bourbon balls.

It’s not a huge project. You needn’t be Martha Stewart.

It takes part of an evening, a little patience, crumbled vanilla wafers and pecans, powdered sugar, a few spoonfuls of Karo Syrup, a good dose of bourbon, and the fortitude to resist downing what’s left of the Jim Beam and Nilla Wafers.

In my case, it also takes a shipping box and a trip to the post office well before Dec. 25. My dad likes to pop an after-dinner bourbon ball or two with coffee all through the 12 days of Christmas.

You know what happened last year, right? Tick-tick-tick. I didn’t get around to those bourbon balls. No big catastrophe. It just seemed a little less like Christmas, that’s all.

But here we are again — and so soon. Here we are with 30 whole days on our hands, and 30 Christmasy things I’d like to do with them:

  • Make and ship bourbon balls to a deserving dad.

  • Go ice skating.

  • Take a serpentine drive to see Christmas lights.

  • Drop cash in a bell-ringer’s bucket every time I see one.

  • Pen personal notes on Christmas cards to the two dozen people I miss most.

  • Spend a day in downtown Seattle, but have all my shopping done first.

  • Drive to Leavenworth, stay over for a wintry night, see the lights and make a snow angel.

  • Throw a real party and hope friends won’t notice my worse-for-wear house.

  • Talk the kids into neighborhood caroling, collect canned food and donate it to people in need.

  • Drop in on my parents in Spokane (I’ll be homesick if I don’t), but get home to Everett by Christmas (I’ll be homesick if I don’t).

  • Put up the outside lights before the temperature drops to 20 degrees. (Hide the garish blue strings from my teen-age son.)

  • Get up for church every Sunday of Advent.

  • For the first time, go out and cut our own Christmas tree.

  • Give Jack the dog a holiday bath and buy him a new red collar.

  • Bake cookies for the office crowd, because goodness knows they’ve baked plenty for me.

  • Spend a late night in our living room with just the lit-up tree and an Elvis Christmas CD. (Don’t plan anything for early morning, as the evening entails a good cry.)

  • Go out to lunch with women friends from work. (Get that day’s work done first.)

  • See "A Christmas Carol" at A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle.

  • Make gift wrap with brown paper and ink-pad stamps.

  • Take in a child’s holiday pageant. If my kids are pageantless this year, tag along with other parents.

  • Rent the video of "It’s a Wonderful Life."

  • Take snapshots all through the season, get double prints and send someone a smile in January.

  • Watch old "Saturday Night Live" holiday skits while staying up too late wrapping presents.

  • It’s labor-intensive, but kids always thank me for making cookie-cutter cookies and leaving the icing and sprinkles to them.

  • Find time for heart-to-heart talks with my brother and sister; in-person is best.

  • Read out loud: C. Clement Moore’s "A Visit From St. Nicholas," Chris Van Allsburg’s "The Polar Express," Dr. Seuss’ "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and the Nativity story from St. Luke’s Gospel.

  • Dig out my grandmother’s candy recipes. (Digging them out doesn’t mean I have to make them.)

  • Go to a "Messiah" sing-along. Have mercy on the audience and just listen.

  • Spend part of a clear afternoon on a beach away from the retail mobs.

  • Buy thank-you cards and stamps in advance so there are no excuses come Dec. 26.

    If my history bears out, I’ll accomplish about a third of the list. And that’s fine. A third of a list per year satisfies my family and my own holiday yearnings.

    We all have crazy, wonderful traditions and our own lists to make. Pick five things — or 10. Despite all that ticking you hear, there’s still lots of time to create a merry little season.

    But all 30? Please, don’t do all that. You risk being crossed off Santa’s list. Nobody likes a superhuman.

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