Merry chaos

Last year, the weeks leading up to Christmas were orderly and organized.  Cards were out at a reasonable time, cookies were baked and delivered with time to spare, gifts were wrapped well in advance of the big day, and all was right with the world. I even managed to have a gift-wrapping Girls Night In party!

This year...not so much!  I don't know if it's because December has been really hard on us with family dealings, or if adding another child into the mix has made things more difficult, but my best laid plans have gone by the wayside.  I am way behind on everything I need to do--Martha would be appalled.  Christmas at the TMI household has been anything but orderly this year.

I wrap all the presents in the dining room.  Last year, the buffet was nice and organized with all the tissue paper, gift bags, ribbons and supplies:

This year, it's a mess.  The picture boxes actually contain candy making supplies, none of the wrapping supplies have made it out of the tote, and random Santa hats are everywhere.

On a good year, my dining room table is free from clutter so I have plenty of room to wrap presents. I keep a small basket of supplies and a bowl of bows in the middle, but that's it.

This year, everything is on the table!  The stuff you see is a mixture of presents that have come in and presents that need to go out.  Tissue paper and empty bags/containers are everywhere.  It's madness!

The kitchen is not much better.  It's a disaster area!  From left to right on the counter, you can see not one but two baking projects where the ingredients are out but no progress has been made, dinner cooking in the crockpot, a sink filled with bottles and cups that need to be washed, and a whole array of dirty cook/bake ware that needs to get into the sink.

 And on the island I have a pineapple.  Why on earth do I have a real pineapple in my house?  I don't even know how to cut the thing!

After surveying the mess last night, I decided to call in my reinforcements this morning.  Little Miss Purple Polka Dots, while incredibly cute, hasn't been much help, but Spiderman is really pitching in.

Once he figured out that the sticky side of the tape goes down, we were really in business.

I tried to give him a kiss for helping me out, but Spiderman can be kind of bashful sometimes.

Now, as soon as the rest of the Justice League arrives and gets to work, I will really be ready for Christmas!