CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: ALL I WANT TO CHRISTMAS IS...TIME TO DO THE SHOPPING

At this rate, I should be finished Christmas shopping just in time for the Presidents Day sales.

A few days after Thanksgiving, I got a call from my very smug friend Jana.

"I'm finished with my Christmas shopping," she announced, obviously bursting with the desire to one-up her less-organized friends.

Jana is my New Age, metaphysical friend; I think she sent her helpful aura out to do the shopping while she stayed home and chanted and drank herbal tea.

Perhaps I'm being uncharitable. That crack probably earned me some bad karma points.

Jana gives interesting gifts. One year she presented me with a hunk of rose quartz, informing me it was my natural birthstone and would attract favorable energy.

When someone hands you a gift-wrapped rock, it's probably better not to question their motives too deeply.

And who couldn't stand to attract a little favorable energy? Who am I to argue?

This time of year, the world is divided into three kinds of people: Those of you who have finished your Christmas shopping and are gleefully letting the rest of us know about it; those of us who are comparing our lists to our bank balances and calendars and gritting our teeth; and those of us who have already resigned ourselves to the fact that we will either make the Christmas deadline or our budgets, but not both.

I'm in the second group, edging toward the third. I have lists and I have the wherewithal -- a Christmas miracle in itself -- but I lack the time and inclination to head to the mall.

Something about all those very harried shoppers double-checking their lists and their bank balances makes me nervous.

I figure at this rate I'll be finished Christmas shopping just in time for the Presidents Day sales to start.

I did buy two rolls of wrapping paper and some tape. My heart's in the right place.

My mind has gone to Barbados for the season, but that's another column.

I only have one shopping dilemma this year. I know what I'm buying for almost everybody.

Whether or not they'll like the gifts is a different story, but I know what I'm getting.

I think somewhere along the line the true spirit of Christmas shopping -- the spirit of Christmas itself got trampled long ago -- has gotten lost in all the hustle and bustle.

We're all in such a hurry to get it over with, or keeping such careful track of what the other guy bought us last year and how much we have to spend this year, that we forget that we're just trying to find something nice for people we care about.

I think what I want this year is an hour or two with nothing to do but drink some hot chocolate and at least consider contemplating my navel.

It's probably too hard to wrap, though.

In the meantime, I still have to find Jana's Christmas present.

What do you buy for someone who was one of Elizabeth I's ladies-in-waiting in a former life? Gloves? Gourmet coffee? A model of the Tower of London?

Maybe a nice gift-wrapped rock....

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.