so much to say

I have so much to say that I don't know where to start, an unusual place for me to be in. Usually, I have an agenda so clearly set—perhaps even for when I'm talking to friends—that this not knowing what to say first is somewhat confusing and tiring.

To make it worse, I have so very little time. After all my pontificating about having a calm Christmas season, a quiet Christmas, a caramel Christmas...after all that, I find myself somewhat stretched for time. Because of Christmas activities.

I have a cookie exchange to go to in 30 minutes, and I just finished typing the recipe for the Chocolate Mint Meltaways I'm bringing. To fit the actual baking into my schedule, I had to make these on Saturday night, listening to Garrison Keillor, which was, I'm sorry to say, a mish-mash of other Christmas episodes of "A Prairie Home Companion" as my NPR station tried to raise money here at the end of the year.

Every time the station people—not Garrison Keillor—came on to plead, I wanted to scream, "But I've already given! Stop telling me to be generous!"

Not exactly a restful, peaceful Christmas thought.

I also hope my cookies aren't dried out and sad now, several days after I baked them. But I tell you, it was the only time.

But I have so much more to say. Much more that isn't about cookies. I want to talk about my dinner party, and how I found a quote in a new book I'm reading—Gone with the Windsors—that made me laugh, thinking about the planning and details that went into this winter dinner party for 13.

I read last night, "We've been worked off our feet all afternoon planning her dinner party. There's so much to do. The menu to be decided and the placement, new table linens and stemware to be purchased, conversational topics to be studies. Wally reads the newspapers cover to cover every day, and she's skimmed through centuries of history and philosophy while having her hair done. She says one hardly ever needs to plod through an entire book."

That is not how I planned for my dinner party; I did not read one philosophy book in preparation, but I want to tell you more about what it was like to sit at the head of a long table, 12 friends lined up {6 on each side}, everyone smiling and looking their most beautiful in candlelight.

And then there's my birthday. My publication party last week. Oh, yes, I need to tell you what ended up getting published...!

You see I'm overwhelmed and distracted. In a very fitting example of how stretched thin I am, I will share what I did this morning. Before work.

I didn't go running because I needed to work on my mother's Christmas present. At 5:45, I was sewing away {that is the only hint you'll get, Mother}, coffee steaming next to me, and ice on the sidewalk outside.

The Christmas tree lights were on—that's the first thing I do every morning, actually. I rush out to the tree and plug them in. That is a moment of hushed expectation.

NPR was giving me conversational topics for the day, along with fun updates on the wind chill: "It's 3 degrees out with a wind chill of 10 below."

This morning, I did laundry, ironed, paid bills, sewed, set aside a pile to take to the dry cleaners, got started on thank you notes, and then I went to work at 8:30.

I felt exhausted before I walked in the door, and yet I knew that if I didn't get some of those things done, I would feel even more exhausted with the weight of an undone task.

I should go. I should go. There's dinner to be eaten before the cookie exchange. But I just wanted to quickly say: I have so much to say, but I cannot find the time to say it and I hope I'm not alone in that feeling.

And I don't want this feeling to last until Christmas.