Deep in the Christmas Queue

Will I finish?  I can't even stop to take pictures.

Here's what I'm planning to finish:

1. one set of mittens with a matching hat (which I've been dying to make since they first came into existence) 
2. one more man hat in a stitch pattern I finally settled on
3. the rest of a dress, including half a sleeve and the neck band.
4. a sweater to match a hat I knit last week.  (It's for a baby.)  (Five days, tops.)

On the sewing queue:

1. Oven mitts like crazy. They are all done except for stitching them together.  Just not feeling it, I guess.
2. Quilting and binding a table runner.  
3. That thing for my sister that I want to make a matching thing for.  If I get the one thing done, I'll be in good shape. We'll see about the other.

Can I just pause here for two little rants?

One

Why are men so boring?  Why do you have to knit and sew and quilt for them in brown, green and blue?  Why do the patterns they require have to be dull and repetitive?  Why can the patterns one chooses never just go and be acceptable and not monstrosities?  

(I say this because Man Hat No. 2 has not been agreeable.  It's been started and pulled a few times now, and it better like the pattern I'm working now, because I'm not going back.)

Two

How does it happen every time that I don't have any particular projects in mind for gifts--or maybe five--and then a few weeks before Christmas I decide that EVERYONE could use socks, a hat and some mittens?  Every time!  I'm dreaming of all the hats I could make for all the people I love.  All the patterns!  All the yarns!  

That part is fun, I admit.  But then I start thinking of deadlines (like Dec. 25, for example) and even more deadlines (like the day past which gifts cannot be shipped for Christmas delivery).  

But wait!  I could always get them out by Epiphany! 

--Who am I kidding? Why do I think like this anyway? Why can't I just sit and knit and sew what I have in front of me?!

And this, dears, is what I like to snuggle into--the peaceful preparation for Christmas.  I think it's the universe's way of smacking me for having all my other Christmas planning in order and mostly done.