Well, I did it again. This is probably the tenth year in a row, and that's being conservative, that I let Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday slip through my fingers without snagging a bargain. Honestly, I'm never in the mood to shop when things are on sale. To be fair, I'm never in the mood ninety percent of the time. I know I've said it before, but I really HATE shopping which is weird since I don't mind spending money. I guess it's the feeling that I'm sure I'll disappoint someone by purchasing the wrong thing. It's like I don't know them well at all (I know I don't). Christmas shopping is the worse. It brings out all my feelings of inadequacy. I seem to have a lot of issues but that's for another column. Ha! Ha! It was all so simple when the kids were young. They'd watch the television commercials while shouting, 'I want that! I want that!' with each passing toy but, luckily, by Christmas, they were happy with anything they got.
Now they are so dang picky. I was letting a few of our grandsons 'shop' at my favorite online store where they added about $23,986 worth of toys to my cart. I watched them like a hawk sot thank goodness none of them got the idea to hit the 'buy now button or we'd be in bankruptcy. The oldest grandson likes anything tool related so he can 'help' his dad around the farm so he's always the easiest one to shop for. Brother number two likes anything electronic. Right now, he's campaigning for an iPhone. It's obviously not gonna happen but I guess he can dream. He did say he'd also accept money in lieu of the phone. That's more up my alley–no shopping involved but it seems like such an impersonal gift. Oh, well.
Anyway, our nine-yearold grandson, Saul, is not into the toys two of his siblings are such as Hot Wheels, Legos, and anything Cars related so after those two brothers finished their shopping, he took over my laptop. He told me he wants a toy playhouse. Cool, right? Not so fast. He is very specific about what he wants. Where he got the idea for this particular version, I'll never know but he is adamant. He wants one with only one door. No windows, just one door. We spent probably hours and hours (It was probably more like half an hour, but it seemed interminable to me.) checking out hundreds of playhouses of every style you can think of and watching any videos offered which was such fun (not). We also had to scroll through all the totally irrelevant products this website likes to add. Some of the items really baffle me as to why they're on a page with kids' playhouses.
Anyway, he vetoed every single one. I don't think what he has in mind exists so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about him.
The grandsons are still way easier to shop for than the girls. They range in age from 16 to 21 so toys are out. Nagging them into telling me what they want is like scheduling oral surgery– unpleasant but necessary.
I found my head spinning (more than usual) (I heard that!) trying to make decisions on gifts and decided that the cool, rainy weather of Small Business Saturday would be an ideal time for us (and by us I mean David since I don't do attics) to drag down the rest of the Christmas decorations from the attic.
As David delivered each of the dozens of storage containers into the house, I opened them and decided which of the hundreds of collectibles I'd put out and which ones to leave in the boxes. Just to change things up I decided not to put everything out. My ability to acquire too many decorations far exceeds our available space.
I know I'm getting more 'mature' as the years go by (I refuse to say old) but dang... it took me three whole days to put up all the geegaws just to make room for our decorations. I could have sworn I had a place for everything last year. Where did all the spaces go? Did our boxes and boxes of decorations multiply over the last eleven months? It does seem there are more than the year before each time David hauls them down from the attic. He's been threatening to start using the kids' playhouse as a storage shed for them and I'm afraid this year he'll make good on it. Anyway, it'll probably take me twice as long to put everything away since it's a chore I dread.
In the meantime, Happy Holidays!