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It's the holidays: Breathe deeply
© St. Petersburg Times, CARROLLWOOD -- The It toy of this season of giving is within my grasp. Lest I not recognize it, I have my daughter to moan, "I want an e-kara." It's Thanksgiving weekend and we're at Target, each of the children with about $10 in pocket money. I gulp at e-kara's retail price. "Too much," I tell her. Mere weeks later, after researching the ads, and after realizing Sarah was born for karaoke, I'm back at Target, credit card in hand. They're out of $44 e-kara's -- and out of rain checks, too. In real life I never, ever look at prices. And before my e-kara odyssey is over, I will have burned a tank of gas and, in my haste, ruined a load of laundry worth at least $50. But they advertised it at $44, on sale, and the yearly holiday hemorrhage has depleted my powers of reason. We're in that month when women have to give up sleep or sacrifice exercise to get it all done. In most households the result is hard to look at. They tell me they hope to have the e-kara by Christmas, but that's just a date on the calendar to me. My holiday started Sunday night. I've been working the preparations around jury duty, my husband's business trip and my daughter's choir concerts, while running an office at a time when people are already preoccupied with holiday plans. Calls are placed to the Carrollwood Target and the Town 'N Country Target. I run out to Toys'R Us, where the e-kara is $59 and a woman is on a cell phone, asking which song cartridge she's supposed to buy. I call the Target distribution center in Clearwater. Eight trucks are expected. They're e-mailing my phone number to Carrollwood. I know where all this is headed and -- more than my children's greed, more than my husband's aversion to house guests, more, even, than the holiday weight -- I'm dreading a confrontation that will bar me from Target. I love Target! What are these holidays about? Yours is about peace, about family, about faith, about Christ. You're straining to keep those themes in focus, though children are children and they have to work on you for that X-Box. Mine? It's about freedom of religion. It came early this year. It's a running joke among my people that the holidays come early, or they come late. You never say "the holidays are right on time this year," not even when Hanukkah falls on Dec. 25 (that's late). My children are much like yours. So, like the office party I offered to host, like the classroom cookies I promised to bake, the e-kara works on my guilt and my budget simultaneously. It's like the Middle East inside my head. Breathe. Breathe. I have my family. I have my job. Not everyone in America can say that this year. And I've done this enough years that I'm starting to learn. Use paper plates. Wear your old clothes. Buy juice boxes. Say you're sorry, like, all the time. Consider staying home on New Year's Eve. The story has a sort-of happy ending. I call Target on Saturday and they have the e-kara. They'll hold it 12 hours. We rearrange our morning so I can retrieve it and meet my husband at Sarah's performance. The line is long. The Guest Services woman moves in slow motion. Breathe. My husband way over-reacts to the load of pink laundry, but I forgive his outburst. It's the holidays, you know.
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