It's over -- for one more year

I don't like women who complain about their husbands a lot, so believe me when I say I'm not doing that. I'm not complaining about my husband, but I am complaining about men. More specificially, I'm complaining about men and Christmas.

It is my humble opinion that married men with children have no inkling, no pinkie toe, no slice of an eyelash of a clue how much work Christmas really is for the women in their lives.

When it comes to Christmas, my husband has a few things on his list:
1) Put up the Christmas tree. Because I am allergic to real trees, it's a fake one. So no finding, chopping down, dragging to the car or tying to the roof rack for my husband. Just grab it from the basement and go.

2) Put up the Christmas wreath. This involves getting on a ladder outside and hanging the wreath with the lights on it up on the front of the house.

3) Buy a present for me. This is not as difficult as it might seem. I'm completely in the "it's the thought that counts" camp, so I'll take new bath towels or a hand mixer or a digital camera. I'm happy with whatever shows up wrapped under the tree. And one is plenty.

4) Make Christmas cards. This was a new one this year. Although my hubby's a fabulous photographer, we have somehow managed not to do a photo card -- ever. The one we did this year got a huge reaction (positive, of course) so we think we might have to keep this tradition up.

OK, so that's about it on the hubby list.

Take a deep breath before I start mine. HHHHHHaaaa.

1) Buy presents for everyone on the list except myself. With two kids and multiple relatives and friends, this is easily the biggest time consumer. I did myself a favor this year and bought the first thing that caught my eye for each person that I didn't have a strong idea for. This actually worked out much better than my usual plan which involves thinking that I'll find something better, so passing by one idea only to never find anything better and then not have anything in the closet. Bad, bad.

One more key thing here: Moms have to keep track of who's getting what and make sure it is all coming out even.

2) Pick up lots of "little things" for a variety of people on the list. I separate this from real Christmas shopping because this is the sort of thing you have to be tuned into all Christmas season whenever you go anywhere. So you're at the card store picking up a birthday card for someone and you happen to see these adorable little tissue packs that say "naughty" on one side and "nice" on the other. Perfect for the Secret Santa at the office -- also works as an additional little thing to stick in the gift bags for the neighbors.

3) Buy wrapping paper, tape and ribbons. Next year I'll scratch ribbons from my list. I buy them every year and rarely use them. I think I'll make a fun, shiny dress out of stick-on ribbons to wear somewhere on New Year's Eve.

4) Stock up on butter, flour, sugar, eggs and vanilla. I'll be making spritz cookies three times, at a minimum. One of those times is for the Boy Scout cookie exchange. Yes, the boys and dads are supposed to make the cookies themselves and, puh-lease, no, they don't really do it. The moms do.

5) Arrange babysitters for the various office and other Christmas related events. Mine were very available this holiday season, which was helpful when I ended up calling two days before my husband's office party to try to find an available teenager on a Saturday night.

6) Wrap the gifts and pack the gift bags. Sort presents in larger shopping bags by what day and where they'll be needed.

7) Select and prepare a holiday meal menu for the Christmas Eve get-together at our house. Just grandparents and us, so this one was easy.

This isn't my entire list, but I don't know how much you want to read about cleaning toilets and other stuff you have to do all the time anyway, just more frequently at the holidays.

So today is Dec. 26, and I'm exhausted. But here I sit at my computer, and my husband's asleep on the couch.