It’s a wrap.

Funny thing about the holiday season. It tends to bring the dilettante altruists out from the woodwork. I’m not complaining. I’m just striking while the iron is hot.

The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is when the cat shelter I volunteer for gets the bulk of its donations. The single biggest fund-raising event we do is book wrapping at a local Barnes and Noble. Over the past few years this effort has grown from us manning the wrapping tables for a few random shifts to our current commitment this year of manning the wrapping table for a solid three-week block of opening to closing. Last year and this I was in charge of the event.

It is nerve wracking, to say the least. Because it’s the holiday season, people tend to sign up first (with perfectly good intentions) and then realize at the last minute that they’ve overcommitted. While I haven’t had as many people bail on me this year as I did last year, it’s still early days. We begin wrapping Tuesday. I feel sorry for the guy who promised to take care of the first day for me. He’s going to be there solo from 9:00 am through 3:00 pm, and Hanukkah begins Tuesday at sundown.

As for me, I’ve taken off work from December 17th through the 24th to wrap. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) Barnes and Noble gave away the 22nd and 23rd right out from under us to another group. Those would have been the peak earning days, but not having to staff that period means that I get the weekend before Christmas free. I will be at Barnes and Noble all day on Christmas Eve, though.

The stress of this event combined with the situation at work has got me in a state of high adrenaline most of the time right now. The mantra for the month is “[fill in the blank] days until January, [fill in the blank] days until January.”

Oooohm.