The day after Thanksgiving we put away the pumpkin, horn of plenty deco, and hauled out the green and red tubs of Christmas bling.

I walked into a friend’s house recently and thought I’d find Mrs. Clause in the kitchen, powdered sugar nose to offset Rudolf’s blinking red one. The decorations were jolly, yuley, and swaddled.

Our home is set as well. Beautifully adorned for all ages and settled my heart. It will be the first Christmas in decades where I’m not in a brown sleigh helping the Ho Ho Man and his minions of elves.

I woke up with a start today from a “UPS Peak Season” PTSD dream. What?!? Okay, I was delivering out of a normal parcel vehicle and before I knew it I was delivering out of a school bus. No children were schlepped. The seats were ripped out and a plethora of boxes were piled slipshod behind me.

Somehow, I parked for a delivery in a position which the only way out was backing up. That’s a big no no in UPS world. Always stop with a forward movement available. But I put the yellow bus in reverse after skipping up to the house and back. If I knew where the button was for the flashing red lights, you betcha I would flick them on just to write it down in my journal.

It was a backwards evasion drill, with cars parallel parked by preteen valet personnel. I barely missed the cockeyed fronts and rears of Oldsmobile boat sized sedans from the sixties. I backed into a UPS vehicle, panicked, and fled the scene. I pulled into the building that night with a chunk of bus hanging off the back. I was gonna be fired for sure, then I woke up. How frustrating to have UPS peak dreams like phantom pains of amputees.