Shopping Expedition
We had a long and tiring day today, starting out early in an attempt to get to the shopping center before the crowds to do some last minute shopping.
Unfortunately the crowds were on to us, and managed to get to the mall before we did. Drat! Still parking was a mite easier going this early and we found a spot relatively quickly. This time of year, I am almost grateful for my disabilities because at least I can get good parking if I get to the shops early...Does that make me bad?
Anyway, I had received a $20 Target Gift Card from one of the survey websites I belong to, and I was looking forward to spending it. I had in mind already, what I was going to get, having looked at the Target catalogue online last night. (more about that, later).
The other objective of our trip was to buy gifts to place under the K-Mart Wishing tree as we'd seen on the news the other night that they were struggling to meet the need for gifts this year, with fewer people giving, and more people needing this assistance this year. We'd set our sights on blessing a boy in the 10-15 age group as that was mentioned on the news as being the most critical need.
We'd discussed in the past few days, the best gift to buy and had settled on a Cricket set, price permitting. For those in the USA less familiar with Australian Sports, Cricket is probably the national passtime for Australians in Summer, with Australian Rules Football or Rugby (league and Union) taking up the Winter Months. Christmas in Australia falls in our Summer, so a Cricket Set would make the perfect gift in our opinion because we didn't want to give anything like DVDs or computer games, lest the recipient didn't have a dvd player or a computer, etc.
We checked out AMART All Sports first, and found a fairly decent Cricket Set in the appropriate size for our chosen age group for $25. Our budget was $50, so that meant we could buy two. However, we decided to check out Big W as well and see what price we could get on them there.
That turned out to be an excellent idea as Big W had sets for $14.95, enabling us to buy THREE, thus being able to bless three little boys. We also bought extra tennis balls to add to them so that each pack contained three balls as opposed to the one that came as standard.
After paying for our purchase, we went straight to K-Mart to place them under the tree. We also tried to take a photograph, but with hustle and bustle and people all around, that proved difficult and the resulting photo was quite blurry.
As we were putting our gifts under the tree, a woman came over to ask us about how you went about giving something so we explained the process to her and she hurried off, clutching her K-MART Wishing tree card to select something to put under the tree as well. Yet another child to be blessed this Christmas!
I'm not writing this post to make much of what we did. I'm doing it, more so to encourage others to go and buy something for a child in need this Christmas. We spend so much time and money on gifts for our loved ones, that often, charities are left struggling to meet the needs of the many people hit so hard by this current financial crisis. It doesn't have to cost a lot, as we proved today, and with a little discerning shopping, you can possibly even bless more than one!
After we'd left our gifts under the tree, we set off to do our own little bit of shopping. At Target, after browsing around a little bit, I decided that the chocolates I'd seen in the catalogue represented the best value for the amount I had to spend, so our Christmas "candy" supplies were bought using the card. I also found a miniature Panetone (Italian Christmas cake) for $3 and couldn't go past! Sandra has never tried Panatone before, so it will be a delight to share this lovely delicacy with her.
After completing our shopping (and this is THE last time we're going to the shops until after Christmas) we went to McDonalds for lunch and then headed home where both of us flopped onto the bed to read and rest and eventually dozed off for a nap. My heel is giving me some grief and warning me that I need to rest or I am going to wind up unable to walk for a week, so I have called off going to markets and church tomorrow with the girls from my circle. Sad, but I need to take care that I am not crippled for Christmas!
So, go on out and buy something to put into the charity toy drive, or donate to your local Salvation Army, or something. Let this Christmas be about blessing others as well as our own families.