What's worse than one big overstuffed button-busting have-another-helping-dear dinner with family? Two in a row! That's the hard-won wisdom Ken Swarner shares in this week's Family Man entry. Dividing the holiday between two families isn't a problem my husband and I have had to deal with, but honestly, one family and one dinner is usually enough to put us seriously over capacity, both food-wise and stress-wise. So I'm looking pretty mightily forward to Friday -- that day when all you have to do is heat stuff up, and you can have a nice turkey sandwich on a paper plate in the kitchen instead of a big Turkey feast on china in the living room. And you can do it without in-laws.
Then again, Friday starts the Christmas shopping season, so when your sandwich is done there's a nice new shipment of stress waiting on your front doorstep. I've actually gotten a start on my gift gathering, thanks mostly to finding a really cute gift shop on our summer vacation, but there are still many impossible-to-shop-for relatives to deal with (including the elderly cousin who made a point of telling me last year that she didn't like our gift and hadn't liked them for several years previous, but wouldn't give a clue as to what she would prefer; I'm thinking a lump of coal). My kids usually have a long list of stuff they want, most of it things I know will end up sitting idly in their rooms or on their floors, waiting to be stepped on. If you're looking for good gifts for a child with special needs (or, more likely, looking for ideas to give out to the relatives who will start demanding lists about this time of year), the Parenting Special Needs guide at about.com has some interesting suggestions.
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