Feeling myself flailing about a week ago, I sat down and made my anal little lists. Three, which shows exactly how anal I am.

1. Christmas Day menu
2. Grocery shopping list
3. To-do list, with tasks parsed out between Friday and Dec. 23.

I plowed through the grocery shopping Saturday and went on a bake-a-thon Sunday. I introduced the guys to the fine art of fudge-making Monday, and though Big Guy initially was dismayed when his “hot fudge” turned cold and hardened, he’s learned to like the results. A little too much — I’m glad it’s almost gone.

But beyond that things began to fall apart, and I had to learn to accept that.

Things never used to fall apart.

Modesty aside, I used to be well-known for holiday bashes, New Year’s Eve and Halloween in particular though any date would do.

The New Year’s event in particular would draw huge crowds, the kind that would have summoned the cops except they lived across the street so I invited them, too. Plus a couple of deputy district attorneys and defense lawyers, just to cover all possibilities.

I’d take the week off between Christmas and New Year’s to prepare, baking and cooking my way into bliss, borrowing extra tables to handle the food overflow. I’d tote the leftovers to a friend’s house New Year’s Day — let’s face it, New Year’s Eve is not an occasion that emphasizes eating — so the party continued.

Later I switched to monthly dinners, with a Christmas Day prime-rib feast as the highlight.

Sometime after Boots turned 1, though, it became one of those “not worth the hassle” deals. People would arrive an  hour or more late and then gripe about the prime rib. So I switched to an allegedly simple cold buffet, figuring folks could eat whenever they decided to show up.

Ay, but the problem with simple is it takes much more advance work, particularly when food allergies require that virtually everything be prepared from scratch.

Hence the three anal lists . By Wednesday, my former reputation for getting things done in an organized manner began to taunt me.

Cheese dip — not done. Cranberry cookies — not done. Crackers — not done. Mini cupcakes, not done. Mincemeat cookies — not done, and I’d even created a half-hour of chaos at the grocery store as confused teen clerks tried to figure out what mincemeat is and where to find a jar.

The guys ran amuck through a still-cluttered house, begging for dinner at noon because I’d told them we’d open presents after dinner. My head was ready to explode until a little voice deflated everything to the proper pressure level.

“Mommy, we need to make Santa cookies,” Big Guy said.

Santa cookies! Those had been on the anal list for Tuesday. How could I forget one of the cornerstones of Christmas.

At least the dough was ready, because I’d frozen left overs our Christmas tree project earlier in the month. So we set to rolling, cutting, baking, frosting and sprinkling. By the guys’ standards, Christmas had been saved. And that’s the only standard that matters anymore.

When Big Guy woke me at 3:30 Christmas morning, he didn’t ask about cheese dip, crackers or cranberry cookies. He wanted to make sure Santa had found his snack. Yeah, I know. It was a scam to sneak a peak at the haul, but I played along.

He grabbed his skateboard and brought it back to my bed with him. Then he remembered his sited reason for getting up and scampered back to the living room to check under the tree.

“Mom! He ate all but one little bite. I’m so glad we baked them!”

And as I snuggled a little boy who was in turn snuggling a skateboard, so was I.

Copyright 2008 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

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