The stockings were filled by the chimney with care, in hopes that my phone charger still would be there!

Sounds like the majority of the Moms I’ve talked to have completed their Christmas shopping, for the most part.

“I just have to pick up some stocking stuffers and I’m all done!” boasted one of my friends.

Not to be the voice of negativity, but that’s a more daunting chore than it sounds like… I’m pretty sure the tradition of stuffing stockings originated years ago, back in the Mother Country, when the only thing children received from Father Christmas, was a small (human-sized) sock filled with a few walnuts, an orange, a corn husk doll and a schilling or two. Nowadays, our kids get so darn much for Christmas, I’m actually bitter about stuffing their stockings. Not to mention, I can ill-afford this task, as the stocking stuffers usually cost more than the Christmas gifts…

So this year, I’m thinking that, since I probably can’t shirk my parental obligation to fill these obnoxious, oversized socks, (fit for a Clydesdale) the least I can do is make MY life a little easier with a strategic selection of fillers. This year, I’m going with the following theme for my stocking stuffers:

“CRAP Y’ALL BORROW OR STEAL FROM ME AND DAD THROUGHOUT THE YEAR”

PHONE CHARGERS: I know in advance, that I’m going to crawl exhausted into bed many a night in 2015, reach behind my nightstand for the end of the cord to my phone charger and find nothing. I’ll follow this trail of nothingness all the way to the wall socket, where I will be rewarded by more of Nothing. I know you will all deny having seen it and look at me dumbfounded and bewildered when I suggest that you may possess any knowledge of my charger’s whereabouts.

CAR CHARGERS: I can already picture the hectic day when my phone loses juice on my way to a basketball or football game in Bugtussle, Oklahoma, completely at the mercy of my GPS, fumbling through the console for my phone charger. Who am i kidding? It won’t be there.

EAR BUDS: Some days I never even make it to the gym to work out, because I burn the requisite number of calories, not to mention all my allotted time, taking the house apart and searching all the cars for just one pair of ear buds.

BATHROOM ESSENTIALS: These items disappear from my bathroom at an alarming rate. Are you taking hairbrushes and combs to your friends’ houses and leaving them there? If that’s the case, why am I not finding your friends’ hairbrushes and combs lying around here that they left? Due to the genetically ambiguous nature of my hair, I actually only need my comb/brush once a week or so, but there’s never one in my bathroom when I do. Ditto razors, soap and shampoo. Do y’all seriously wait until we fall asleep at night and creep into our bathroom to kidnap our toiletries? Any excuse not to shave my legs is great, but Dad really needs to shave, so….

COFFEE PODS: One of the best things Daddy and I ever did for ourselves was switch to the woefully expensive Keurig system of coffee brewing. One cup at a time! Fast and Fresh! I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s literally changed our lives for the better… Except for the mornings when we stumble bleary-eyed into the kitchen to discover that you and your friends burned through $20 worth of coffee pods, the previous night, during an all night study session. It’s rather pathetic that I have to hide Back-Up Emergency Pods in various places around the house to ensure that we can always get a cup of coffee to start our busy day of servicing your needs.   And, I probably shouldn’t say this, but it’d probably be cheaper if we had a “pot habit”, instead of a “pod habit”….

FOOD AND GAS GIFT CARDS: It’ll cost me a ton, but I’ll probably throw in a few gas cards and fast food gift cards. I reckon it’s “pay me now or pay me later”. I understand that it’s ridiculous for me to expect you to eat dinner at home or, God-forbid, on the costly meal plan the university requires us to pay for. I am resigned to the fact that your generation socializes at Panera, Whataburger and Starbucks. So, I guess the exciting challenge will be for me to predict which dining establishments will find favor in 2015 with “Generation I’m-not-eating-that”.

I’m super motivated to head over to Target now. I really like my plan and think this is Pro-active Parenting at it’s very finest! I just have this nagging suspicion that even after Santa Claus gives you a $30 Starbucks card, it’ll barely be February before I’m fishing around in the hole I slit in the bottom of my mattress trying to find a coffee pod for Daddy, so he can go to work to try to earn enough money for your sock to runneth over next year…

• Christmas