Christmas Procrastination and Lonely Neighbors

Right now I am kicking myself for procrastinating way too much on Christmas presents. I go through this process every year: I set high expectations, I lack in organizing a way to meet my own expectations, I procrastinate, I begin to dread Christmas, I get depressed, I drink a lot of coffee and maybe some wine (today), I get myself together and mail my cards and presents late. I am stuck between punishing myself for my own procrastination and cherishing these precious days previous to Christmas and while my children are ages 4 and 6. I fully expect to weep quietly to myself when they turn 5 and 7 this spring.


I get up at 4 am today to get my pictures together (pictures are always our presents to friends and family). Not only do I start way too late in the game, but I seem to be terribly inefficient once I do start. I sat in front of the computer for about 5 hours this morning…with not much to report. I promised myself as soon as I got home in the afternoon I would finish the job of weeding through a year’s worth of pictures for our calendar-gifts. Deep down I knew something would inevitably steer me off track.

After dinner Sam (my 4 year old) wants to make chocolate covered pretzels. “Okay, we’ll make them.” I say sweetly. How can I deny him? Sweets are his love language.

Not too long after that, I look up and see a purple hat atop an aging face outside my kitchen door. I inhale in a short moment of alarm as the wrinkled face with a half open jaw peers through the window. “Oh, Judy” I say to myself.

She is an elderly lady in my neighborhood. I began as her Shaklee girl, helping her order her vitamins and non-toxic cleaners. That began about a year and a half ago, and now she regularly stops by, calls, and asks me to stop by her house to pick her up sometimes. I take her to the bank, CVS when she’s sick, whatever she needs. She lives alone; she’s 74. She tells me about her problems—how she thinks her hair “looks like shit”; how her friends think they’re too good for her; how her son-in-law doesn’t like her. She walks slow for 74 and many times I think she seems much older than she is. Someone who drops in on her occasionally found her passed out in her bedroom a few weeks ago; her blood sugar had dropped too low.

I took her to church last week and she wants to go again. I ask her what’s wrong with her normal church. She says the people who live across the street from her went to the same church and never offered to take her. One day they even passed her on their way—she was walking, they were driving—and didn’t offer to stop. She said she thought that was very un-Christian of them.

I can’t make my mind up about Judy, but I help her out anyway and sometimes I think she has a point. I am sure the couple that drove by her on the way to church that day had the same feeling I did when she showed up on my porch tonight. She had been downtown and needed a ride home. I was reluctant at first, only because I was dishing dinner up, preparing chocolate for the pretzels and in the midst of chastising myself for all my Christmas procrastination.

But when I left her at her house tonight, she hugged me and said, “You’re my favorite person right now.” Although her words seemed too generous, I was glad that she said them…glad that my small efforts bring her a bit of company I suppose.

Besides, I have no excuse not to help. I’m a professional procrastinator and my Christmas cards and gifts are always late. And now, I sit and write this instead of finishing my picture project…with sticky chocolate fingers…