Getting things off my chest...

Ok, this is going to be me rambling about frustrations. So, if you'd rather not read this entry, I understand. However, I feel like writing it may help me get over it.

Today was a busy day. We went Christmas shopping today and went fairly early to try to beat the crowds. It was a pretty successful day but we didn't get home until 3:00. We had just over an hour before we had to leave again for church bowling league (yay...). In that time I had to put together a meat, cheese, and cracker platter and wrap our gifts for the gift exchange. By 4:30 we were out the door with bags of extra plates and cuttlery and other things that people may have forgotten.

It was raining on the way down, which was kind of stressful because the roads were busy, and darkness and rain never help that! Before we got to the bowling alley we had to pick up some plastic table cloths. We went to the grocery store near by and could NOT find stupid plastic table cloths! Finally we found the ONE hook of table cloths that they had and grabbed a couple of those. We got to the bowling alley and had to move some of the stuff to get things set up, but we finally got it done! We began setting food out and people started showing up. The people who were arriving were opening the food up as we were putting it out and digging right in. Once others saw them scooping up their plates they started coming to get food too. Bowling hadn't even begun. I looked at the table and was definately worried about having enough food. But, I thought, more will come... it always does. The families that came after that thought brought in their small plate of cookies or brownies and all dug in to the very few plates of actual food. By the time bowling started my meat and cheese tray was gone. The plate of chicken wings and meatballs was gone too. I felt bad for the people who got there right on time and had only veggies or cookies to choose from because that's all people were bringing and they were NOT eating it! Ugh. It's a good thing that I haven't been wanting much food lately anyway. And I hope that people who brought food actually got to eat some of it and that all the spouses and kids of the families who brought a veggie tray or cookies didn't eat it all. People who cop out and bring something small and crappy to a get together, but then pig out, just really get to me. So, that was getting under my skin.

While I was trying to get the food set up I was also trying to keep the 'male' and 'female' gifts organized. When someone gets a strike they get to go pick a gift. I'm not sure if you can see where this is going, butI wasn't surprised. People who brought gifts got to pick one. I, of course, didn't get a strike until the 3rd game. By that time I had already noticed that there were no gifts left on the table. Part of me wanted to just say, 'ugh, who cares', but there was definately a part of me that was angry that someone didn't follow the rules! The gifts are usually small and sometimes stupid to the point where I wouldn't even want to take it home. It was the principle, though, that I couldn't have gotten a present even if I would have wanted one. I felt like I had gone through all this work to do my part for the Christmas party and then didn't get any food or a gift because other people were free loading. I probably shouldn't have let it, but it pretty much ruined my night.

So, hopefully tomorrow is a better day.