I just want it to get here already. The holiday. Relaxation time.

Ha. So I'd said.

Less than a week until Christmas and I realize I'm facing:
- Baking, Round Two (after a shockingly successful trial run that leaves me questioning key character traits as a result)
- Birthday celebrations
- Holiday celebrations
- The last of the gift purchases
- Wrapping
- The Label Game-ing*
- Packing
- Traveling

The holiday can take its sweet time. Really. Don't rush on my account. Please.

An extra day or two? No problem. My pleasure.

*The Label Game was born in the late 90s, after my mother decided that there still needed to be a sense of wonderment involved with the post-S.C.-era gift distribution process:

To: The Recipient
From: Someone Who Somehow Ties In To the Nature of the Gift, So Recipient Can Try To Guess Gift Prior To Unwrapping

An easy example:
To: V
From: Lloyd Dobbler
Gift: A DVD of "Say Anything."

Each member of the family works hard to come up with something that balances obscure references with the desire to give the recipient a fighting chance at guessing what's inside. You really have to know your audience in order to make the game work. I could, for instance, make reference to Kurosawa in a gift for my film school student brother, but go more in a John Wayne direction for my father. Perhaps a "How I Met Your Mother" reference for Mom that would make my brother scratch his head.

Everyone loves to struggle with it. Often, one member of the family will call another, asking, "Does this make sense to you?" We brainstorm together and laugh at the befuddled expressions on our loved ones' faces come Christmas Day.

It makes for a fun time. And the tradition has begun to spill over into other family circles. Beth informed me that her family has adopted the tradition and is likewise agonizing/cackling over the possibilities.

Heheheheheheh.