Written By Cathy Drinkwater Better

Preparing for the holidays is an art. And like any art, it takes time to master. Give Doug and me another 20 or 30 yearsÉwe’ll get it right.

Between us, we have 22 immediate family members for whom we buy Hanukkah and Christmas gifts. Then there are our business colleagues– let’s estimate that conservatively at about a dozen folks–and our closest friends: local, out of state, and abroad. So let’s call that another 57 presents, give or take. All by ourselves, Doug and I can make or break the holiday retail trade.

I think I know why Mr. and Mrs. Claus look the way they do. They’re only in their mid-30s–it’s all the holiday preparation that’s made them old and gray. Santa’s working nights; and even if she’s not the one who flies around delivering millions of presents, Mrs. Claus still has to cook Christmas dinner for all those elves. I can barely cook a holiday meal for 18 relatives without winding up in a coma until New Year’s Eve.

The first year Doug and I hosted the family holiday party, I was excited. How hard could it be? I thought. I went out and bought a 36-pound turkey (Actually, I suspect it was an ostrich; but the guy at the supermarket swore it was a turkey–with a glandular condition). I made 10 pounds of stuffing; 20 pounds of mashed potatoes, six gallons of gravy (my older son says my gravy is “so good, you could drink it as a beverage”–of course, he’s the only 32-two-year-old I know with a cholesterol count of 1,785); and a yam-and-marshmallow casserole so big I had to bake it in a child’s wading pool. All set, right? Wrong. We’d waited too long to shop. Note to self: never go to the mall two weeks before Christmas.

List in hand, Doug and I arrived at the largest mall I’d ever seen. It made the pyramids of Egypt look like Monopoly pieces. The parking lot– which stretched for miles–was full. I know, because we cruised around for nearly an hour looking for a parking spot. We thought one guy was getting ready to pull out; but it was a false alarm. He was only stowing a flat-bed-cart-load of shopping bags in his truck before heading back into the mall. He had on a Santa hat and a T-shirt that read, “Masochist.”

We wound up parking in a “satellite” lot; I think it was in New Jersey. Luckily there was a shuttle helicopter that took us to the mall and dropped us on the roof, where we shinnied down a rope through an air shaft and landed in the food court.

“OK!” Doug yelled over the din of the throng of holiday shoppers. “Heads down, shoulders forwardÉand press on!” Actually, it went surprisingly wellÉexcept for a brief scuffle with a little old lady over the last copy of “The Miniature Poodle Sixteen-Month Calendar,” for Doug’s sisterin- law. But I’m telling you, that was no little old lady; it was a trained assassin dressed up to look like a little old lady–she had a left hook and a roundhouse kick you wouldn’t believe. Not to mention a three-day growth of beard. But I got the calendar when I reached into my purse and she thought I was going for a gun.

We managed to get something for everyone on the list. Although, by the end of the day, I have to admit we were grabbing items at random from near-empty shelves and running for our lives. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that Doug’s dad would like his Snoop Dog CD.

What with trimming the Christmas tree, digging the menorah out of storage, and standing in line to mail the out-of-town gifts, I had my hands full for the next couple of weeks. “I can wrap the family’s presents on Christmas Eve,” I told Doug. “You can help,” I added. “It’ll be fun!” “Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “I have a date with Burl Ives and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.” I’d never felt so alone.

Christmas morning Doug found me face down on a pile of cardboard gift-wrap tubes, scraps of paper, empty tape dispensers, and presentsÉlots and lots of presentsÉsome wrapped, some not. The cats, both tangled in curling ribbon, were asleep on top of Grandma’s new jogging suit. He shook me and I sat bolt upright.

“We’re out of Hanukkah paper!” I wailed. “And bows!” “There, there,” soothed Doug. “Nobody will notice once they bite into your delicious holiday ostrich. By the way, it’s 6 a.m.–shouldn’t you be getting that into the oven about now?”

The following year, “New rule,” I announced. “We shop early and use catalogs and the Internet.” It wasn’t as festive as the mall, I’ll admit– no mechanical elves singing “It’s a Small World After All” on an endless loop amid billows of fiberglass snow; no one dumping a cold, frothy fruit smoothie down the back of my shirt– but there was the privacy factor: nobody actually saw me buy the “Who Farted?” T-shirt for my brother-in-law (When you find the perfect gift, you have to get it.). After giving our credit card and other personal information to anyone who asked, we’d checked everyone off our list and felt we had the holidays under control.

That is, until a large brown truck pulled up in the driveway one day and unloaded a heap of boxes and packages as tall as Mt. Rushmore right in front of the garage door. It took me three days to drag them all into the house; then get them sorted, wrapped, and tagged. Until then, Doug had to park his car down the block and walk home.

That’s why this year, everybody–regardless of which holiday they celebrate–got a bag of chocolate coins, a gift card from StarbucksÉand a check.

As for next year, I have an even better plan: we’re going to Bermuda. And we’re booking early.