Do you see what I see?

Don’t even bother to ask if I am ready for Christmas.
I’m not.
I just can’t see how I can do it all … not when I keep losing my glasses. I need them to order gifts from Internet shops, to address Christmas cards and packages or to work on my Christmas projects.
I would be much further along with everything if I would just keep track of my glasses.
But I don’t.
I take them off to see where I am walking, or to whom I am talking. Inevitably I lose them – just like I lost this year’s Christmas gifts, cards and craft projects. It also has not helped that we were well into December when I realized we still had not found the time to put up the tree, to shop for gifts for our international students or to sew up the holiday projects I promised myself 11 months ago I would do.
I did begin my Christmas shopping early. Last January I found the perfect holiday decorations and greetings for family members and material for a couple sewing projects.
In November I even remembered I had everything stored on a closet shelf. I spent an afternoon sorting, arranging and packaging everything by family groups. We took packages to deliver in St. Louis at Thanksgiving time. The ones I needed to ship I put in a nice logical place until we returned.
Good idea, except I forgot where I had put them and that I had some of the gifts.
Between misplaced gifts, misplaced glasses and not enough time to do everything, the Christmas clock kept ticking off the days.
Last week I found a time stretcher – my husband. During one of his busy days of retirement, he, with the help of an exchange student, found half the tree decorations and set up the tree.
While they hung ornaments, I began cutting, pinning and sewing. The next few days I squeezed time to stitch before work, after work and in the middle of the night when I could not sleep. Between times I even found the rest of the decorations – right where they were supposed to be.
I found more time when I gave my at-home hubby lists of items to purchase for holiday foods and gifts.
On paper I look organized, but the day we received our first Christmas card, I realized, I had not sent out the cards or the gifts. Worse, I had absolutely no idea where I had put them.
I looked for them in all the usual – and unusual – places. They were as elusive as wireless eye glasses on a patterned table cloth – which is exactly where my glasses were the evening I needed their magnification to place an order with an Internet shop, and I could not find them. Frustrated with holiday clutter and no glasses, I gathered up Christmas paper, cards, wrapped packages and spools of thread. I mentioned my missing glasses to our exchange student, “I am the all round best loser of glasses. I keep an extra pair or two at the office just to be sure I can do my work.”
She nodded politely, put away the dishes, began stacking the clutter on the table and found my glasses under a stack of Christmas mail.
I put them on, finished my Internet order, sewed the final stitches and my husband found the lost cards and gifts.
All’s well that ends well, except … well, half way through writing this column, I took a break to clear my mind and consider how to finish it. I laid my computer glasses down – somewhere – I just don’t know where. I put on my spare pair. I’ll look for the other ones – just as soon as I finish this column.