While I am always grateful for my sisters, there are some weeks that I give a little extra thanks for the fact that they exist and always have my back.  For example, on birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or any other gift-giving holiday I am exceedingly thankful that I have sisters and that they live close to my parents.  Holidays usually prove difficult for me in terms of actually getting a gift to the recipient…on time.  I realize a bazillion people live far away from their families, but I rarely seem to be able to get my crap together to get a card in the mail or a package sent in a timely fashion.  It’s not that I forget. In fact, I often have a gift sitting on my dining room table, but the thought of going to the post office makes me want to clean out my oven or something.  I loathe the post office.  I don’t even have to go to the main post office with a line out the door anymore as I have a very convenient neighborhood post office just down the street and it’s rarely busy.  It seems all those years of waiting in line at the post office with babies in tow have stayed with me.  Perhaps it had something to do with carrying a baby and packages while Sydney and Alex rummaged through all of the envelopes, tried to take the pens that were attached to the table and talked to every single person in line! I still get anxiety thinking about boxing up a simple package.  To this day when I do actually make it to the post office I feel like I have accomplished a day’s worth of work and deserve a bowl of ice cream and a Netflix binge.

Back to the sisters.  I am not going to lie.  They have bailed me out of so many holidays that I have lost count.  I have been gone almost 25 years so please don’t try to do the double digit math. Let’s just go with A LOT!  Sometimes, they call me a few days before an event and ask me what I am doing for _______.  I wonder if they are secretly sitting together laughing because they know I am going to say, “oh crap.  What did you guys get?”  Then they graciously offer to help me out.  You know the routine;  I send money, they sign my name to the card, they send photos, etc.. it’s a beautiful thing.

This year, my youngest sister called us way back in the fall with the brilliant idea of concert tickets for mom and dad’s anniversary. We all agreed it was the perfect gift AND we had a holiday we could check off the list.  Literally, all I had to do was send her a check for my share of the gift.  So, that was like 8 months ago and to be honest I completely forgot about all of it until G mentioned it a couple of days prior to their anniversary.  She said she was going to mom and dad’s for a cookout and that they would give them their concert tickets.