Christmas Mishaps....or Christmishaps

I love Christmas. Really, I do. But last night I started to hate it just a little bit. Why, you may ask? Because last night everything was going wrong...Here are some of the things that caused my mini tantrum last night.

I am giving my bro a big picture collage of door images I took while in Puerto Rico. I wanted it to be ready for Christmas and so I went two weeks ago to order this. I brought the print in and had the frame dimensions. I picked out a nice neutral color with a good texture, and was pleased with myself when I heard that it would be ready with plenty of time to assemble and wrap this week. I went last night and picked it up--braving the angry, mob-like Christmas crowds. They made me check it there before I left. I even had to sign some paper saying it was perfect. Only problem is, I was so concerned with the inside dimensions that I never stopped to think that maybe they had gotten the outside ones wrong. I drove home, lugged everything into the house, brought the frame and poster downstairs, cleared a spot on the floor, opened everything up only to discover that the matte was two inches smaller than it needed to be. Sure, the inside opening was perfect, but it was too small for the frame. I'm not kidding when I say that I started to cry. I ran upstairs to look at my copy of the original invoice. Sure enough, on the original one it said the smaller size. So I thought surely they would blame me and I would need to shell out another $50 for new mattes. I called the store and was first put on hold for 15 minutes. Then I hung up and tried calling back. The line was busy for a half hour. At this point, I was actually half-screaming in frustration every time I heard the busy signal.

But...I eventually got through. And they are re-doing the mattes at no cost to me. And they're rushing the order so I can maybe get it before Christmas. And the rush is at no additional cost to me either. Good job, Michael's. You definitely have the Christmas spirit going on!

After giving up on the matte, I thought I would move to another gift project. I will not say much about it, as someone who reads this blog is getting this gift. All I will say is that it involved several different photos and more than half of them were the WRONG SIZE. Yay. Another trip to Target's photo center, anyone?

After giving up on the "wrong sized photo" gift, I thought I would finish my Christmas cards. Remembering that I needed to get a gift card to put into one of them, I ran upstairs (for, like, the gazillionth time that night) to seek it out. I actually had purchased this gift card long ago and I last saw it somewhere in my room. Only last night I couldn't find it anywhere. I tore my room up in pursuit of this stupid little piece of plastic. I knew it HAD been in there somewhere...but then I thought maybe I accidentally threw it out? So then I checked all the trashcans I had been using. Still, nothing. But since the media kept reminding me that yesterday was the last day you could send things out for it to arrive in time, I HAD to send this gift out! So what did I do today? I bought another gift card. I just hope that I come across the original one soon as this duplicate purchase is going to upset my Christmas budget a teeny bit.

And there you have it....those are the biggest mishaps of my 2005 Christmas season. Of course, they are augmented by the fact that I hadn't finished wrapping anything last night and hadn't even thought at all about WHEN I was going to deliver and/or ship out gifts until yesterday (which, let me remind you, was the last day you could ship anything out in order for it to arrive before the big holiday).