Shopping
I am horrible at Christams shopping in general. I hate shopping for other people. I sometimes see the perfect gift for someone and when that happens I will usually get it then and there, but I don't wait until Christmas or a birthday to give it to them. So I get nothing saved up. So I always find myself in a mall, with a list of people and no idea what the hell to get them. I hate it.
I worked in retail long enough to learn to hate Christmas shopping. A few Black Friday's, Christamas eve's and Dec 26th's was more then enough for me. Extended hours suck from a workers point of view. Unless, of course, you need the overtime, which if you work in retail you probably do, unless, of course, your are a salaried manager of some type, in which case you don't even get overtime. We once did the math for the assistant managers at the one place I worked at - turns out they made less hourly then the hourly recent hires. The problem I have with this as a consumer is that the only reason the stores open that early and close that late is because they know people will go in to to shop. If we don't shop then the stores won't stay open at such stupid hours, and maybe some kid can get to spend Christmas eve with his mother instead of his grandparents. The gift shop I worked in on the strip stayed open Christmas day - and we had some serious bastards for store managers. We had to get an assistant manager and the security gaurd to lie so that I could switch work shift with another worker so that she could spend Christmas morning with her son.
The short to all this is that I really prefer not to shop in the Christmas shopping season at all. So here it is the weekend before Christmas and the only stuff I have is the stuff I have for my mother. At least I have her covered. I didn't even get smart enough to hold on to the stuff I found for people in the Keys last week.
Jim and I are going to go Christmas shopping today. I think I've lost my mind.