Ah Yes, The Happy Holidays
After trying to drive home from the movie yesterday in surprisingly (to me) heavy traffic with drivers that were making driving a fourth priority on their list of things to do at the moment I realized: Holiday shopping is upon us. With no travel plans (heck, no plans whatsoever) for the Thanksgiving holiday I had somehow lost track of the fact that here in America we are on the cusp of the worst five weeks of the year. Worst in the did-you-really-want-to-just-go-to-the-store-for-necessities kind of a way. From here on out, a simple trip to get bread and milk will take four times as long. I’ll have to battle for any available pump at the gas station and God forbid I need to actually go to a store NEAR the mall (I rarely have use for the mall itself) I will never find a parking spot even if my needs have nothing to do with the holiday.
I got down to business this morning to alleviate my need to ever leave my house again until after Christmas is over.
LM and I logged onto our favorite website, the great and powerful, Amazon.com and looked up the gifts we wanted for my niece and nephew. Little Bird has a birthday in early December so we were on double-duty for her. Offering free shipping we thought we had hit the ultimate in jackpots! We would have them gift wrap the presents for the cost we’d normally spend on shipping and have them sent directly to my sister’s door and we’d have taken care of the whole of it from start to finish! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed at all to putting time into a great gift. Not in the least (i.e. my brother’s scrapbook) I do however HATE having to fight the Wal*Mart rednecks for wrapping paper and the hour-long wait at the post office just to mail ONE box. This was my ticket to holiday paradise.
Only our gifts didn’t qualify for free shipping after all. So, we trudged off to Wal*Mart and found half of the things we wanted. Darted over to Kmart and found the rest of what we needed. Upon returning home, I set LM down at the computer to order his gift for ME. You need to understand that as a single mom, with all my relatives living far away, it’s difficult for LM to buy something for ME without ME there. We used to go to his store of choice, and I’d find a salesperson to help him pick out some things, bag them and then I’d just come up to pay the total, but somehow last year the sales woman seemed to think it was completely reasonable for an 8 year old to spend $94 on one person and so we had quite a time at check out with me explaining that she would have to UNpackage several of the items as I wasn’t paying nearly that much for ME.
So, LM was given a couple of websites of stores he knows I like. But apparently he stumbled upon something totally different and got so excited about it that I couldn’t tell him no. When his dad arrived (at noon to pick him up to go to Pittsburgh. I ask, what part of noon is “first thing Sunday morning” as he had said earlier in the week?! Ahhh, ex husbands…) he helped him through the check-out process on the website as I was forbidden to see any of it and they even decided to have it shipped to his dad’s so I couldn’t see the return address on the box. I’m afraid. I’m very very afraid. But I promise not to peek at the my bank account statement when it arrives.
BUT, this is to say, we are very close to having what we need to have done. I picked out several items for LM today as well and have an idea of a couple stops to make early this week to get some of the rest.
I might actually enjoy the season after all. Now, if I could just think of my clever, catchy, one-of-a-kind, self-created Christmas card theme/card/picture/letter deal, I’d be all set!
P.S. just to add to the irony that is my life, my sister tells me today after all my dilemmas and agonizing yesterday over Harry Potter that they bought LM a collectible HP magic wand for Christmas from the Skymall on the plane. Read that: no return option. I cannot catch a break on this, it would seem.
I got down to business this morning to alleviate my need to ever leave my house again until after Christmas is over.
LM and I logged onto our favorite website, the great and powerful, Amazon.com and looked up the gifts we wanted for my niece and nephew. Little Bird has a birthday in early December so we were on double-duty for her. Offering free shipping we thought we had hit the ultimate in jackpots! We would have them gift wrap the presents for the cost we’d normally spend on shipping and have them sent directly to my sister’s door and we’d have taken care of the whole of it from start to finish! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed at all to putting time into a great gift. Not in the least (i.e. my brother’s scrapbook) I do however HATE having to fight the Wal*Mart rednecks for wrapping paper and the hour-long wait at the post office just to mail ONE box. This was my ticket to holiday paradise.
Only our gifts didn’t qualify for free shipping after all. So, we trudged off to Wal*Mart and found half of the things we wanted. Darted over to Kmart and found the rest of what we needed. Upon returning home, I set LM down at the computer to order his gift for ME. You need to understand that as a single mom, with all my relatives living far away, it’s difficult for LM to buy something for ME without ME there. We used to go to his store of choice, and I’d find a salesperson to help him pick out some things, bag them and then I’d just come up to pay the total, but somehow last year the sales woman seemed to think it was completely reasonable for an 8 year old to spend $94 on one person and so we had quite a time at check out with me explaining that she would have to UNpackage several of the items as I wasn’t paying nearly that much for ME.
So, LM was given a couple of websites of stores he knows I like. But apparently he stumbled upon something totally different and got so excited about it that I couldn’t tell him no. When his dad arrived (at noon to pick him up to go to Pittsburgh. I ask, what part of noon is “first thing Sunday morning” as he had said earlier in the week?! Ahhh, ex husbands…) he helped him through the check-out process on the website as I was forbidden to see any of it and they even decided to have it shipped to his dad’s so I couldn’t see the return address on the box. I’m afraid. I’m very very afraid. But I promise not to peek at the my bank account statement when it arrives.
BUT, this is to say, we are very close to having what we need to have done. I picked out several items for LM today as well and have an idea of a couple stops to make early this week to get some of the rest.
I might actually enjoy the season after all. Now, if I could just think of my clever, catchy, one-of-a-kind, self-created Christmas card theme/card/picture/letter deal, I’d be all set!
P.S. just to add to the irony that is my life, my sister tells me today after all my dilemmas and agonizing yesterday over Harry Potter that they bought LM a collectible HP magic wand for Christmas from the Skymall on the plane. Read that: no return option. I cannot catch a break on this, it would seem.
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