You go to Starbuck’s for a special treat and very carefully place your order with the young woman who can’t actually see over the counter, and then you get it back and your daughter takes one sip and declares she doesn’t like it, and you think there she goes again refusing to eat absolutely everything, but then you check the code on the side of the cup and, in fact, your order for small cocoa, lukewarm, non-fat, one shot, no whip has come back medium, lukewarm, whole milk, two shots, and adorned with whip cream. When they fix it, she drinks it.

You go shopping mid-day Christmas eve. What are you crazy? The store is completely packed. There are no kid-sized carts. There are no double-seat carts. The kids do not complain. You park them in front of the pasta aisle, and they have a dandy time entertaining themselves while you rush up to dairy and down to soup. The check-out lines are backed half-way up the aisles, but there are cheerful store employees with plates of chocolate chip cookies (gluten unfortunately) directing traffic. They help you load your groceries while you watch the kids of the woman behind you. Everyone is kind and good humored including the children.

Sick. Sick, sick, sick. The Christmas eve guests can’t come because their three year old has been throwing up all night. Everyone in your household is sick enough already, particularly the head chef. Remember that scene in Tampopo where mama gets up from her death bed to make dinner? The head chef looks like that as you force him to make Christmas cookies and linguini with clam sauce. Both are delicious.

You get to jazzercise Christmas eve. Score two points and advance a round. The childcare workers, whom you adore, spend the entire hour prompting your son: And who is coming tonight? And what is he going to bring? Lose five points worrying about him spending the entire night listening for hoofbeats on the roof. He wakes at 4:00 a.m., Daddy puts him back to sleep, and he sleeps until 6:45, an unheard of luxury. Earn back that five.

Your sister pays the extra twenty bucks shipping, and her gifts arrive, albeit 8:00 p.m. Christmas eve. You order six weeks ahead, refuse to pay extra for the shipping, and no special present under your tree. You did it by phone, so you can’t even find a nice email confirmation. You probably scribbled the number down somewhere. Uh huh. Odds on that gift?

Christmas day you never have time to talk to one set of grandparents, have time delay problems saying hello to another set (half a world away), don’t get the Christmas cookies delivered to the neighbors who gave you secret Santa gifts, and you and your partner are still quite sick. Otherwise, everything goes amazingly smoothly. Ho, ho, ho.