T-Minus 48 hours

It’s almost over. It’s almost, almost over. In roughly 48 hours, I should be home from the last of the holiday-related Crazy. I will be putting my feet up and saying to myself, “Hot damn, I’ve lived through another one!!!”

A sense of pride will wash over me. And I will say to myself, in those first few moments, “OK, next year? No. Next year I am not going to Party 1 and I’m not doing the trip to City X and that whole thing where I’ve got one or twelve or eleventy-mazillion extra kids over? Not. Happening.”

Aaaaaaaand at some point around Halloween I will forget all about those first few moments and start packing up the calendar with visits and trips and parties and sure! I can watch your Poopsies for six hours while you go to the mall!

Since Thanksgiving, I doubt I’ve gotten fifteen minutes of peace and quiet. It’s been one thing after another. A party, a gift exchange, another party, another gift exchange, travel over here, travel over there, wait for delivery people, assemble something, cook something, tell someone to brush their teeth…hoo boy.

We have had extra human beings sleeping in the Den for going on three weeks. Solid.

The most exciting night, we had fifteen people, including our normal six. For the last two weeks, there’s been a ten year old boy sleeping on a mattress in the hallway right outside our bedroom. Ahem. Yes. It’s been spiffy, for all concerned. I’m sure he’s anxious to get home to a real bed that isn’t in the middle of a very active hallway – the Denizens all started back to school this week, so the morning routine has been raging around him every morning starting promptly at 7:00. Which is two hours after the two of us have bumbled over him to get downstairs, because that is where the coffee is.

I have a party tomorrow, and a promised visit Sunday, and then…whew.

That’s it.

Guests are gone. Parties are all attended. Gifts have been given. Trips have been taken. I have no ‘command performances’ for over a month. No extra children staying here.

There will be nobody using my laptop to play video games. Nobody stealing my monitor (!!) to play video games on the tower instead. Nobody asking me for snack (again).

I’ll be able to start shoveling out the Den. I’m pretty sure the kitchen floor is still down there…under the crumbs and the slick layer of rain-induced muck. My desk drawer looks like someone emptied a mail truck into it, and my email isn’t much better. These last three weeks have been absolute hell on me in terms of “…and then I did something FUN!”

And yet, it was all about fun. It was all about holiday spirit and festivities.

And it was fun. And festive. And a million kinds of wonderful.

And great balls of fire, but am I ever glad it’s almost over. I may just fall on the (filthy) kitchen floor and kiss it when I get home Sunday night.

I may never leave my Den again. Or allow anyone else to enter it. Ever! And this time, I really mean it.

At least until Easter, anyway.