Merry Hanukkah

Friday afternoon was a bit disastrous for me. It's a really long and boring story, but the key takeaway is that at 4:30 pm I found out that none of the kids' Hanukkah presents had shipped. And Hanukkah started at about 4:30, with both kids fully expecting a bounty of eight presents (one per night). Michael had left work early, and I had already promised to pick up his dry cleaning (I KNOW - I'm wife of the year, I tell you), so I ended up walking to Border's with my laptop, my purse, and the dry cleaning.

I then schlepped through Border's in my winter coat, with my laptop, my purse and the dry cleaning, grabbing up appropriate presents like a madwoman. After almost falling down the escalator, I managed to check out and then I headed outside to try to find a cab. Hahhhaaaaaaaaa. Yeah. There were no cabs in the middle of downtown Chicago at rush hour. I had little choice at that point, so I headed to the el. If you are keeping track, at this point I was wearing my winter coat, with my laptop, my purse, the dry cleaning and now two giant bags of presents. I was also sweating profusely and I think, maybe, crying.

Did I mention that the el doesn't go right to my neighborhood? Oh no. That would be too easy. I have to take the el to the bus. And then walk two blocks over icy sidewalks. By the time I walked in the door, I was a wreck, but managed to run upstairs and wrap the presents.

We lit the menorah, each kid got a gift (very well received), and then we started decorating the Christmas tree. It was a festive night in the Wiley household. For dinner, we didn't do latkes (those were eaten last night). We sent out our amazing nanny Sammy for wings. Yep, buffalo wings, Christmas carols and menorah lighting. A festive night for all.