Mission Accomplished!
We spent the entire day shopping. Well, maybe not the entire day - I did go to Mass this morning - but we did spend the entire afternoon stimulating the economy. We had three main shopping goals today, and I am please to report we accomplished all of them.
The primary function of today's purchasing adventure was to get me something to wear for Christmas. Every year since I started doing the Christmas Eve marathon I have worn some kind of dress or skirt on Christmas Eve and every year I freeze my ass off because the church is too damn cold for thin and/or skimpy party wear. (By skimpy, I mean sleeveless or short sleeved with moderately low necklines and moderately high hemlines - I don't wear anything to church that doesn't cover the subject, if you know what I mean.) This year I decided I'm going to wear pants - and thermal underwear if needed - with a sensible sweater top to keep me from catching pneumonia. I also decided to get a pair of dressy flats because the last time I wore heels all day long, I wound up doing something horribly painful to the ball of my foot (which is still swollen and may need to be looked at by the podiatrist if it doesn't get better soon) and I just don't think the extra 2" I gain from wearing them is worth all the pain and agony; plus, I can't wear anything thicker than trouser socks or tights with my heels and I want to wear warmer socks this year because cold feet = cold all over in a fairly short period of time. In the end, I spent an obscene amount of money on the shoes and a considerable amount of money on the clothes as well, but at least I won't be scurrying around two days before Christmas when all the stores are picked over trying to find something to wear the very next evening. That's been the pattern for the last 3 years or so and Carl agreed that it was time to break the cycle of "apparel procurement procrastination." I think the thought of not spending December 23rd in Dress Barn listening to me moan about how crappy all the seasonal leftovers look on me made all the running around worth it in my husband's point of view (or at least I hope so).
Our secondary goal was to purchase gifts for a 12 year old girl we don't know. I picked up a Catholic Charities gift tag at church and all this girl wanted on her wish list was an mp3 player and an educational game. Thanks to Elizabeth's excellent list of suggestions and Heath's help locating them in the store, we walked away from The Board Game Barrister with a cool game called Q-bitz that I think even Carl and I would enjoy playing. We also managed to find her a 4gb mp3 player by Jensen (Carl says they make really nice car speakers) that even plays videos. I'll get them both wrapped and bring them in to the church next weekend for the big gift collection extravaganza. We've been warned that any gifts that are not returned on time won't be delivered to intended recipient, so we definitely had to accomplish this goal before next Sunday's deadline.
The last objective was grocery shopping. Nothing exciting to post here aside from the fact that we actually managed to squeeze it into our itinerary. Of course, it helps that Woodman's is open 24 hours.
Our shopping isn't completely finished for the season, but at least we managed to get some of the more time-consuming and time-pressed shopping out of the way. Whew! Now we can concentrate on all the other important events coming up in the next few days.
The primary function of today's purchasing adventure was to get me something to wear for Christmas. Every year since I started doing the Christmas Eve marathon I have worn some kind of dress or skirt on Christmas Eve and every year I freeze my ass off because the church is too damn cold for thin and/or skimpy party wear. (By skimpy, I mean sleeveless or short sleeved with moderately low necklines and moderately high hemlines - I don't wear anything to church that doesn't cover the subject, if you know what I mean.) This year I decided I'm going to wear pants - and thermal underwear if needed - with a sensible sweater top to keep me from catching pneumonia. I also decided to get a pair of dressy flats because the last time I wore heels all day long, I wound up doing something horribly painful to the ball of my foot (which is still swollen and may need to be looked at by the podiatrist if it doesn't get better soon) and I just don't think the extra 2" I gain from wearing them is worth all the pain and agony; plus, I can't wear anything thicker than trouser socks or tights with my heels and I want to wear warmer socks this year because cold feet = cold all over in a fairly short period of time. In the end, I spent an obscene amount of money on the shoes and a considerable amount of money on the clothes as well, but at least I won't be scurrying around two days before Christmas when all the stores are picked over trying to find something to wear the very next evening. That's been the pattern for the last 3 years or so and Carl agreed that it was time to break the cycle of "apparel procurement procrastination." I think the thought of not spending December 23rd in Dress Barn listening to me moan about how crappy all the seasonal leftovers look on me made all the running around worth it in my husband's point of view (or at least I hope so).
Our secondary goal was to purchase gifts for a 12 year old girl we don't know. I picked up a Catholic Charities gift tag at church and all this girl wanted on her wish list was an mp3 player and an educational game. Thanks to Elizabeth's excellent list of suggestions and Heath's help locating them in the store, we walked away from The Board Game Barrister with a cool game called Q-bitz that I think even Carl and I would enjoy playing. We also managed to find her a 4gb mp3 player by Jensen (Carl says they make really nice car speakers) that even plays videos. I'll get them both wrapped and bring them in to the church next weekend for the big gift collection extravaganza. We've been warned that any gifts that are not returned on time won't be delivered to intended recipient, so we definitely had to accomplish this goal before next Sunday's deadline.
The last objective was grocery shopping. Nothing exciting to post here aside from the fact that we actually managed to squeeze it into our itinerary. Of course, it helps that Woodman's is open 24 hours.
Our shopping isn't completely finished for the season, but at least we managed to get some of the more time-consuming and time-pressed shopping out of the way. Whew! Now we can concentrate on all the other important events coming up in the next few days.