*Note – Regarding last week’s narrative, my apologies for adding too many days to the celebration of Hanukkah which actually begins Thursday, December 7, and ends on Friday the 15th. My bad! Now onto this week’s piece.

T-Minus two weeks and two days, and counting, before Christmas, so what’s going on with you? Got your Christmas Cards out yet? Is the tree up and are the decorations done? Is your outside display complete? Is your Christmas menu planned and is the shopping for it done? Have you started baking the Christmas goodies yet? Are the little ones aching with anticipation? Have you mailed their letters to Santa Claus?

How about the gifts? Are they all bought and wrapped? Are they bundled according to where they’ be delivered? Did you double check your check-off list making sure that you didn’t forget anyone? Are all things that are labeled “Assembly required” assembled yet?” Are the kids presents safely hidden where they can’t or won’t find them?

There’s so much to do and so little time to do it. Is that what you are feeling?

It seems like many people are in the same place at this time of year. We get so wrapped up in the preparations that tension builds, tempers may get shorter, multitasking is at its peak, and we are wondering if all things we have planned will ever get done on time. It’s a scene played over and over yearly about as many times as the movie classics, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and/or “A Christmas Story” has been shown on television in our lives. It’s a situation where we get too close to the forest to see the trees and I’m not talking about the Christmas Trees.

We want things to be absolutely perfect, so much that we over focus on the what(s) of the season, and not so much the who(s). Holidays should be about people. As the adage goes, “…Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Men.” (In this adage, “Men” encompasses men, women, and children.)

We sometimes find ourselves running around so much during this time with self-placed blinders on as we rush through the stores to make sure we grab a certain thing we have planned to give someone. If we go back to “Black Fridays” of the past, when the doors of the stores opened and the Super Bargain Hour began, it was comparable to the start of the Boston Marathon, with the mad dash to the TV deals, the computer deals, the popular toy deals, etc. It’s the same type of rush that may happen in grocery stores, trying to get the food items we want before the store runs out of them. We don’t seem to be worried about the people we bump into, or run into as we are in pursuit of the “Golden Fleece,” gift we want to give to that special person on our gift list.

Maybe we need to heed to the song “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On,” composed by the late Jimmy Buffett and his collaborator Matt Betton, and do just that when things get hectic. Maybe we need to take a step back, look over the situation, evaluate our priorities and relax if something doesn’t go exactly according to plan. Try and have a Plan B in your pocket in case things happen that put a glitch in Plan A. And instead of reaching for something off the shelf before someone else grabs it, extend that hand to as many people as possible during this time of year, and all year, and shake the hand of another, in peace and fellowship, or take that hand and reach into your pockets to give to organizations that help others at this time and throughout the whole year, if we have the wherewithal to be able to do that, Maybe you can also take that hand, join it with your other one, and use it in volunteer settings to help those who may need it through community programs.

The greatest gift we can give anyone is ourselves. So instead of all the whats at this time of year and always, may we all Breathe In, Breathe Out, and Move On to those projects that will focus on the whos that may need a hand, and the whos, us, who can lend it.