Operation Santa Complete. (or, My Life Keeps Getting Saved in Myriad, Strange, Unexpected Ways.)

It's almost 2:45pm, and my legs hurt.

Not in a "was doing exercise at the gym" kind of way, more in a "was mowing the lawn yesterday and am now discovering muscles I didn't know I had" kind of way. The tight, uneven, ornery pain in my legs is solely due to the fact that I was on my feet Christmas shopping yesterday. For about five hours.

This is my first year doing Operation Santa. At the James Farley Post Office (the big one on 33rd street) they get hundreds of thousands of letters a year from kids addressed to Santa Claus, asking for things they want for Christmas. #78 of my 101 is to participate in volunteer activities - Operation Santa is ideal for that purpose.

I went in last week, signed my name on a register, and perused letters from kids until I found a few to answer (you can get up to 6). From what I observed, there were a high proportion of 12 year olds asking for ipods and playstations. But, the letters that caught my attention were from single parents of 3 and 4 year olds. Gift-giving was always *huge* at Christmastime in my house growing up, and my heart fissures a little to think that there are young children who won't receive anything this year.

So, I chose three letters. One from a family of two sisters, three and four, one from a three year old boy, and the other from a four year old girl. I designated yesterday, Tuesday, as the shopping day. Had looked through the Sunday Times sales papers, got some idea of where I would go and what I would buy when I got there. Left home around noon yesterday, fresh and excited.

By 3pm, my head was completely scrambled.

I hate shopping on the best of days. Stores, especially the large ones, make my brain feel like it's been tossed into a blender on the "chop" setting. Started at Old Navy. Spent a hour and a half there in the children's section, trying to figure out which way was up. By the time I got to the toy section at Kmart, nothing was making sense anymore, and my throbbing feet were protesting every step. (Thank god for Mom, whose good advice got me out of there at a decent hour).

I took the subway to my office, where I could spread out in a warm environment and wrap presents to my heart's content. I was done wrapping around 12:30am (yes, after midnight), which was *way* past my heart's content.

I woke up this morning still sore, *dreading* getting all these big, awkward boxes onto a cart and rolling them three blocks away to the post office (boo, hiss to whomever closed the post office next door). Left the house at 9:30am (*really* early for me to be out of the house on a non-work day). Got to the office around 10am, finished all the wrapping and packaging and addressing at 11:30am, when my colleague suggested:

"Why don't you send them through our internal UPS shipping system?"

I always thought it too much trouble to figure out how to use our internal UPS shipping system. But I did today, and it *saved* *my* *butt*. I spent a half hour at a computer, printed airbills to stick on the packages and left them in our company mailroom. Everything will arrive on time.

And I *didn't* have to wait for hours in a post office line.

Amazing. All of life will be different now.

I do have a few cards I still need to send off to family, but for the most part, Christmas is done.

Whew.

Onto the next thing...

One week from tomorrow I have a recording session. This week is all about getting ready for that session, and preparing to pull the novel out again in January. I'm reading Conflict, Action and Suspense right now. I may go poke around the NaNoPubYe website and start asking questions.

After a nap.

jules